No Rest for the Wicked
by fierathefangirl
Summary: Eva knew exactly what she was getting into when she sold her soul to save Sam Winchester. Or at least, she thought she did. But more trouble is brewing in hell than she or the Winchesters could have ever anticipated.
1. Chapter 1

In northern Indiana, there's a place where two dirt roads cross. It's insignificant, just like the hundreds of other crossroads that litter the state, but at the moment, it's a glowing beacon. Not to the humans around it, but to the red-eyed demons scouring the earth for deals to make and souls to reap.

I'm the one who lit the beacon. By burying a small box in the center of the crossroads, filled with my ID and an assortment of small items that were easy to find. It seems strange that so much can hinge on such a small thing. This one box is the start of something that will cost me my soul.

It doesn't take long before the demon shows up. She's the epitome of sexy: silky black hair draped over her shoulder, a short (tight) black dress, high lace-up boots. If I'd seen her at a bar, if the situation were different, I'd probably try hitting on her.

But it's not, so I don't.

"Well, what do we have here?" the demon asks. Her smooth voice is as alluring as her appearance.

"I want to make a deal," I say flatly, trying to seem uninterested in the attractiveness of the demon before me.

She rolls her eyes. "Typical. Always straight to the point. Okay, give me a name and I'll give you a deal."

"Eva," I say through gritted teeth, starting to get impatient. I was hesitant to even leave Sam behind and come out here, and it's making me uneasy that it's taking so long already.

"Alright, Eva," the demon says, sauntering slowly towards me. "What can I do for you?"

"I need you to save Sam Winchester."

The demon's eyes light up mischievously. "A Winchester! Always making deals. You guys are hell's best customers, you know that?"

I ignore her jab, even though it's true. "He's been having hallucinations ever since the wall between him and his memories of the pit broke, and it's… it's gotten worse. He hasn't slept in days. He's not going to make it much longer if he doesn't get help, and soon."

The demon cocks her head and smiles. "I'm sure I can take care of that. And you know the price?"

I nod. In my line of business, it's not really something you can't know. "My soul. In ten years."

The demon laughs. "Ten years? Oh, no, honey, for a friend of the Winchesters, we're going to expect payment much sooner. Say… a month?"

My stomach drops. I'd expected a negotiation, but this is ridiculous. Most people got ten years. Even Dean had gotten one. But a _month?_ What the hell am I supposed to do with a month? "A year," I say quietly. "Just give me a year."

"One month or no deal," the demon says, the corner of her mouth curling up almost in a mocking cruelty.

I hesitate. We can find some other way to cure Sam, to piece back together his broken mind…

_But there's no time_, part of me says. How long could a human survive without sleep before their exhausted system starts shutting down? And if that doesn't kill him, it would be something else. At some point, he'd kill _himself_ if he got the chance. Lucifer—the image of him, anyway—is driving Sam completely out of his mind.

"Fine," I spit out, trying to sound brave despite the fact that I'm terrified. One month. I have _one month._ "A month. You have a deal."

"Great," says the demon cheerfully, as if she wasn't signing a deal to send a soul to eternal torment.

She leisurely closes the remaining distance between us before pressing her lips to mine. I remain as still as possible, unwilling to give this demon any pleasure from the process of sealing a deal.

She steps back with a disappointed look on her face. "You'd be such a great kisser if you didn't resist so much," she says, shaking her head. After a moment, she adds, "That's it then. One month in return for the restoration of your boyfriend's mind."

"He's not—" I start to say, but she's already gone.


	2. Chapter 2

I let out a huff and climb into my black 1970 Chevy Camaro. It had been a piece of shit, barely able to get from place to place like I needed it to, until I'd joined up with the brothers and Dean had fixed it up for me.

_Dean_. He's going to be so pissed. He'll probably kill me before the hellhounds do. What do I even do? Tell him I sold my soul for his brother? I know he's done the same thing but he won't be so forgiving of my decision.

My thoughts race the entire way back to the mental hospital. About how fucked I am. About how Sam and Dean will react. About if I was wrong, if there really was some other way. And on top of it all, like a steady rhythmic hum, is the persistent thought of _one month one month one month._

I pull into the parking lot and hesitate. I don't want to go in. I'm not ready to face the brothers.

But I need to see if Sam's okay.

I climb out of my car slowly, my heart pounding with a mix of worry and eagerness. I push down the feeling and walk towards the front door of the building.

I'm let into Sam's room, and I pray Dean's not there as I walk in.

He's not. A wave of relief washes over me. Thank god.

But Sam is. He's sleeping peacefully on his cot, curled up on his side. His face is still scratched and gray from days without sleep, but the exhaustion is temporarily erased from his face.

"He's asleep," I breathe to the doctor.

"Yeah. Fell asleep about half an hour ago. Guess the sedatives finally kicked in," the doctor says.

"Do you mind if I stay here?" I ask quietly, nodding to the chair in the corner of the room.

"Of course," the doctor says, stepping out of the room and closing the door behind him.

I pull the chair over to the bedside and sit down, watching Sam's sleeping face. I forget, for the time being, that I'll be going to hell in a month. I forget about everything, just watching the slow rise and fall of Sam's chest.

Sam is my best friend. Dean is a close second, but Sam and I understand each other better, and it would destroy me if anything happened to him. And I love Sam a lot, but I'm not _in love_ with him, contrary to Dean's teasing and the occasional sleeping together from time to time (I mean, come on, anybody would want to get a piece of Sam Winchester, I mean, have you _seen_ him without a shirt on?).

I should feel guiltier about selling my soul and leaving Sam and Dean behind forever. But right now, watching Sam peacefully sleeping, I just feel overwhelming relief instead.

Dean comes in after about an hour. He has the smell of alcohol on him, so I can only guess he's been out drinking.

"He's asleep," Dean says in surprise more to himself than to me.

"Yeah," I say, glancing up at him.

"What happened?"

I shrug. "He fell asleep."

Dean finds another chair and pulls it up next to me. "You've been here since I left?" Dean asks.

"Yep," I lie. I nod at Sam. "He was sitting there in that trance-like state, looking over at where I guess he was seeing Lucifer and talking to the air every few minutes, and then he curled up and fell asleep."

"Huh."

"Yeah."

There's a few moments of silence. "It's gonna take a while for him to sleep all that off," Dean says. "That is, if there's nothing in his head to wake him up. We can probably go back to the motel."

I bite my lip, hesitant to leave Sam again. What I actually want is to spend the night, but it'll just end up being uncomfortable for me and unnecessary for Sam. He's safe here. Dean and I had filled the room with hex bags and put warding spells where we could to keep him protected from any enemies that might take the opportunity of Sam's vulnerability.

"Okay," I finally say getting to my feet and giving Sam a light kiss on the top of his head before following Dean out of the room and to the parking lot.

* * *

I'm sitting on my bed in almost complete darkness, watching a flickering TV screen show images of a missing girl, a murder, a massacre in some far-off country. I wonder if hell is going to be like what's the news channel is showing. Concentrated misery, one horrific image after the other until you can barely stand to look anymore.

Except in hell, there's no way out, _and_ you get to take part in the action.

A single teardrop is suddenly sliding down my cheek, reaching my chin and then dripping onto the fabric of my jeans. Then another teardrop, and another, and then I can't stop them anymore.

I can't face this alone.

Barely able to see through my tears, I manage to make it out of my room and to the door next to mine. I knock softly and the door opens a few moments later.

"Eva?" Dean asks. "Eva, what's wrong?"

I try to gain control of myself for a moment, and then burst into tears again. "E-everything," I sputter. "Everything's wrong."

Dean pulls me into the circle of his arms a little awkwardly. I'm sure he's not entirely used to dealing with sobbing women.

_Don't be so weak,_ a malicious voice in the back of my head says. _Stop crying._

I thought I'd lost that persistent voice a long time ago, when Sam and Dean had patched together my weathered and beaten soul. _The same soul that's going to hell_, the voice reminds.

_Shut up,_ I think back at it. _Crying isn't weak. Pain is not weakness._

"Shh, it's okay," Dean says, pulling me into the room and shutting the door behind me, still holding me tightly as my tears soak into his shirt. "It's okay," he repeats, rocking slightly and pressing his lips to the top of my head.

When I finally catch my breath enough to talk, I say, "I fucked up, Dean."

He doesn't immediately refute it, insist I couldn't have messed up so badly. No, he knows that when I say I fucked up, I really fucked up. It's not hard for something like that to happen with the life we live.

He just waits for me to explain further.

I let go of Dean and sit down on the edge of his bed. He follows and sits down next to me.

I take a deep breath. I don't have to tell him the truth now. I can make something up. _I don't want to travel with you and Sam anymore, I'm going my own way._ Or maybe, _I have terminal cancer. I'm dying in a month._ Or possibly even, _I feel like this is my fault. The Sam thing._ That would excuse my behavior but not put the truth out there.

All these options flash through my mind in an instant, but I finally blurt out, "I have a month."

"A month till what?" Dean asks, alarmed.

"Until my soul goes to hell," I say, my voice shrinking until the last bit of my sentence is almost inaudible.

"Eva, what did you do," Dean asks, his voice inflectionless but tense. "Please tell me you didn't—"

"I couldn't just watch Sam suffer!" I exclaim, my tone defensive. "His memories of Lucifer were going to kill him, one way or another, and I needed to save him."

"You didn't _need_ to do anything," Dean growls, anger in his voice where it had been soft and gentle only a minute before.

"It was my choice!" I almost shout. I'm getting angry too. He shouldn't be getting angry considering the things _he's_ done to save Sam. "Is it so much to ask you to respect my decision?"

"It was a stupid decision," Dean snaps.

"Well, at least now Sam's not having a, what was it, full-blown psychotic episode, if you hadn't noticed! Unless you had a better idea of how to fix him?"

Dean opens his mouth and then closes it.

His eyes flick away from yours and he clenches his jaw. "We'll figure something out. We've dealt with hellhounds before, we can keep them away from you."

I doubt it, but it makes me feel better that Dean would be at least willing to try.

"Thanks," I grumble. There's a charged silence. "I'll see you tomorrow morning," I finally mumble quietly, pushing myself to my feet and letting myself out.

I close the door behind me and lean against it, taking a deep breath. Tomorrow I'll have to deal with Sam. But that's a whole other problem, and worrying about it right now isn't going to do any good.


	3. Chapter 3

We pick Sam up the next morning and check him out of the hospital—well, maybe "check out" is a bit of a loose term, it was a lot closer to sneaking him out—and then our tiny two-car caravan is on it's way to the next town on our list, the one that Dean had found a case in. My world might be crumbling in on itself, but the rest of it just keeps on spinning. There's things to hunt, people to save.

We stop about half-way there to eat at a diner. Dean digs into his burger without saying a word, but Sam and I just pick at our meals. Sam still looks pretty terrible—exhausted and worn out, even after more than ten hours of sleep (which, with the life of a hunter, is actually a lot).

I probably appear almost as bad. I didn't get any sleep last night. How could I sleep with that much stress on my shoulders?

"It's weird," Sam says, absent-mindedly poking at his salad with his fork. "How Lucifer was suddenly just… gone."

"Any idea what happened to him?" Dean asks between bites of his burger.

"No," Sam says, shaking his head. There's a moment of silence between the three of us. "Did either of you…?" he finally says, looking between you and Dean suspiciously.

"Nope," I say quickly. "I'm just as confused as you are."

Dean gives me an irritated look and raises his eyebrows judgmentally as if to say, _Are you going to tell him?_

I shake my head very slightly at Dean. No way I'm telling Sam I sold my soul for him. At least, not now. Not in this dingy diner somewhere in the middle of Ohio. And not when he's still recovering from days without sleep.

"I guess we'll figure it out eventually," Sam says, dropping his fork onto his plate of salad and pushing it away from himself. "I'll go get some gas for the car, be back in five or ten minutes."

He slides out of the booth and leaves the diner to the sound of the ringing bell over the door.

"You have to tell him," Dean says in a hushed tone, leaning forward as soon as the door closes behind Sam.

"I'm not ready," I hiss. "_He's_ not ready."

"I think he'd rather know sooner rather than later that you have _one month_ to live!"

"I'm not ready," I repeat.

"Okay, so when _are _you going to tell him?" Dean asks.

I hesitate. I'd prefer not to tell him at all. Actually, what I'd prefer is to not be going to hell at all. But neither of those options are going to work. "I'm just going to wait until the right time."

"Which is when?" Dean demanded.

I huff in exasperation. "I don't know, okay? Just… just let _me_ tell him, all right? I don't want it to come from you."

Dean narrows his eyes, glaring at me intensely for a few seconds. "Fine," he finally says, dropping his napkin on the table next to his half-finished burger. "But you'd better tell him in the next week."

"_Okay,_" I grumble. "God, you nag as much as my mother."

"Yeah, well," Dean says, "At least I'm not the one lying to my boyfriend." He scoots out of the booth and tosses a couple bills on the table to pay for the food.

"Jesus, Dean, he's not my boyfriend!" I snap, following Dean out of the booth and into the parking lot.

"Deny it all you want, but I know better," he says in a matter-of-fact voice as we step out into the warm sun.

"I could say the same about you and Cas," I grumble.

"What?" Dean asks, casting me a look.

"Nothing," I reply, giving him my most innocent smile.

Sam pulls up in the Impala a few moments later and we climb in.

"Talk about anything interesting while I was gone?" he asks as we pull the doors shut.

"Nope," I say casually. "Nothing at all."

—

A week passes. We're on a case with a ghost, a case that's small and normal and comfortable. I don't know if I could deal with any more demons and their schemes. I guess I'll be seeing enough of them pretty soon anyway.

Not that Sam knows that. No, I still haven't told him. I thought about it once or twice but wussed out. I'm still not ready yet.

I know my seven day window is over when Dean stops me as we're getting out of the Impala to go inside the motel, sometime after dark when most of the motel rooms are darkened and the parking lot is lit only by the occasional wall lamp and the flickering lights from the neon sign twenty feet up, a red _VACANCY_ below it.

"You go on inside, Sammy, I need to talk to Eva about something," he tells Sam, who shrugs and heads towards the room, duffel bag in hand.

As soon as he's out of earshot, Dean says in an annoyed tone, "I gave you a week, Eva. Are you going to tell him, or what?"

I take a deep breath, shaking my head.

"So you're just going to wait until the hellhounds are coming for you for him to find out? Is that it?" He points towards the door to the motel room Sam is in and says, "I know my little brother, and the more you wait, the more it's going to hurt him. He's going to want to know how much time he has left with you."

"I _will_ tell him, just give me a few more days…"

"We both know that's just an excuse—" Dean starts, and then I hear from behind us, "Tell me what?"

Dean and I look up to see Sam standing there watching the two of us intently.

"Oh," I say in a surprise. I try to act as nonchalantly as I can. "Sam. What are you doing there? I thought you went inside."

"Forgot something in the car," he says dismissively. "But what were you going to tell me?"

"This one's all you," Dean says, slapping my shoulder and walking off back towards the motel. "Don't let her lie to you, Sammy!" he calls over his shoulder.

"Lie to me about what?" Sam asks me suspiciously.

Fuck. I don't think there's any way out of this one. I run a hand through my short hair nervously. "There's something I have to tell you."

"Uh, yeah, I got that," Sam says, his eyes still focused on me expectantly.

"I, uh, I…" I don't know how to even say this. "I was involved in getting your hallucinations to stop."

Sam watches me, completely frozen. I don't even think he's breathing. I know I'm not.

I take a deep breath and go on. "I made a deal."

Sam closes his eyes, a pained expression on his face. He knows I'm telling the truth. I couldn't lie about something like this. "How long?" he says quietly, eyes still closed. "A year? Like Dean?"

I'm paralyzed. I can't respond. The agony in his voice makes it impossible to speak.

His eyes open again and he looks at me. He doesn't say anything but the intensity on his face forces the words from my throat. "A month." It comes out barely more than whisper.

Sam turns away to conceal whatever emotion he's feeling, curses softly.

Finally he spins back around, his expression a mix of pain and anger. "Fuck, Eva!" he says, not loudly, and not angrily, but closer to disappointed. I think it's worse than just anger would have been. "It wasn't worth it. _I'm_ not worth it."

"Don't say that," I tell him, my voice low. "You're always worth it."

"Trading your life for mine? That's not heroic, Eva, that's selfish."

"Yeah, well, it's my decision and it's done now so you'll have to fucking deal, okay?" I snap at him.

Sam pauses, a scowl on his face. "And Dean knew?"

"I told him the first night," I say, trying to keep my voice calmer. "Because I was… because I didn't know what to do."

"How did he react?"

"He was really pissed too," I say.

Sam huffs a laugh. "Of course he was."

"He said he'll help keep hellhounds away when… when, you know."

A corner of Sam's mouth turns down in thoughtfulness. "We can try. I don't know if it will be enough."

"I know," I reply.

There's a pause, and then Sam steps forward and pulls me close to him, wrapping his strong arms around me. I usually hate being treated like this, like I'm not tough enough to hold myself together by myself, but now I return his hug without a word. I feel safe for now, in a world of danger, and it's such a relieving feeling.

"Thank you, Sam," I whisper.

"For what?" he murmurs back. "You're the one who traded your soul for my sanity. I haven't done anything."

"Thanks for sticking with me," I clarify.

There's a few moments of silence before he sighs, hugging me tighter, and whispers, "Of course. Always."


	4. Chapter 4

We finish the ghost case when I have two and half weeks left. The bones are salted and burned, and then we're onto the next town. Sam and Dean were against moving on to another case, insisting we spend the remaining time looking for a way out of my crossroads deal, but I didn't want to spend my last weeks on earth frantically looking for something that didn't exist. I'd rather spend it with the closest thing I had to a family, pretending until the last moment that everything was fine.

Of course, Sam and Dean weren't just going to let it drop, even though I knew it was hopeless.

"Anything besides killing the hellhounds that could get you out of this?" Sam asks absently, flipping through the book of lore in his lap with a flashlight on it as we drive through the early evening towards the new case in upstate New York. It's just him and me in my Camaro. Dean's just ahead of us, driving the Impala.

"Besides an angel, you mean?" I ask. Dean been saved from hell by an angel, the angel that ultimately became his best friend. I know Cas would help me out, too, anything for the Winchesters. It's too bad he was torn apart by the thousands of souls inside him before he could.

Any other angels we know? There's Balthazar. I'd met him, but Cas had killed him shortly after I had. Rachel, Cas's friend and lieutenant, had met the same fate. And the other minor angels I'd run across? All dead, or left powerless, or just somewhere far away, too busy dealing with the destruction caused in heaven (by Cas, actually) to help out someone they didn't know.

Angels are usually kind, but they're not _that_ kind, and I'm sure they'd say that since I'd gotten myself into this mess in the first place, they shouldn't help me out of it. And that's just the friendly angels. Quite a few of them have made enemies of the Winchesters.

Even the angel who'd taken Stephen—my boyfriend at the time—and used him as a vessel was gone, killed in the war between angels. I didn't find out until Cas had seen me standing next to Dean and Sam and sputtered it out breathlessly as his vessel fell apart around him.

The angel, Suriel, had been on Cas's side, back when Michael and Lucifer had first been locked away, but had died in one of the earlier skirmishes, back before Cas's goal had been to use the power of thousands of souls. Of course, I hadn't found that out until later.

It's probably a good thing he was gone early on. He was one of the lucky angels who didn't live to see his leader turn corrupt.

Not that I have any sympathy for the angel. He _did_ steal my boyfriend, flip my life on its head, and set me down this wild path of the supernatural that led me here: sitting in a fifty-year-old car with one seriously fucked-up guy, following his seriously fucked-up brother in his fifty-year-old car, and waiting out the short time before my soul is on its way to hell.

I'd be more concerned about Stephen than the angel, if anything. He's up in heaven now, though, I'm sure. I'm glad he's finally at peace. An angel using your body as a vessel is one helluva wild ride.

I should be sad, but I'm really not. I've had years to get over his being taken out of my life so suddenly, and in that time I've been forced to build the emotional toughness that comes with the job.

I wonder if Suriel would help me now, if he was still around. Would Stephen, if he was still in there somewhere, appeal to him? Ask him to save me from eternal damnation? Or would he have moved on from me the same way I have from him?

"So our best chance at dodging the deal is killing the hellhounds," Sam says, snapping me out of my memories.

I take a deep breath, letting myself catch up with the present. "Yeah, but hellhounds aren't exactly the easiest thing to kill. They _are_ invisible to us, in case you'd forgotten, and they're pretty fucking dangerous."

Sam clicks the end of his pen a few times in annoyance. "It's worth a shot."

I roll my eyes. It's always worth a shot for the Winchesters. No wonder they're in so much trouble all the time.

Half an hour later we pull into the parking lot of the motel in the town we're staying at, check in, and bring in our bags.

As usual, I'm in a separate hotel room, so Sam comes to knock on my door to ask where I want to go for dinner.

"I'd rather stay here. You guys bring me back a burger or something, okay?" I say as I fold up one of my t-shirts and set it on the bed with the others.

"You sure?" Sam asks.

"Yeah." After being stuck in a car with another person for who-knows-how-many hours straight, I need some alone time. A shower. Clean clothes. Maybe a nap.

Sam leaves and I glance out the window a few moments later to see the Impala pulling out of the parking lot.

Well, now's as good a time as any to get washed up. I root through my bag for my toiletries, my toothbrush and toothpaste and the few other things I bring with us everywhere to stay clean and hygienic.

My hand bumps against a box and I pull it out. Tampons.

Wait. When was my last period?

Fuck.

I count days in my head.

Two days late.

When could this have happened? I had my period last month as usual, and the only person I've been with since then is Sam. But the last time we hooked up was… about three weeks ago.

Fuck.

I crouch down next to my bag again and pull things out, trying to find what I'm looking for.

There it is, at the bottom: a couple of spare pregnancy tests from when I'd had a scare a couple months ago. I check the expiration date quickly, hands shaking. They won't expire for another year.

Good.

I slip into the bathroom and close the door behind me, locking it despite the fact that I'm alone.

The results of the test aren't what I want to see. Those two vertical lines are awfully small for something so big.

Fuck.

I pick up my phone and dial the familiar number for Sam's phone.

"Hello?" he says. I can hear Dean singing obnoxiously to music in the background.

"Hi, Sam," I say. It comes out more unsteady than I had intended it to.

"Is something wrong?" he asks. Dean hits a high note in the background and I can hear as Sam turns to his brother and tells him to shut up before talking into the phone again. "You sound nervous."

"What? No, nothing's wrong. I just called to…" I trail off uneasily. "Just get back soon, okay?"

"Yeah, sure," he says a little suspiciously. It's not hard to tell something's off.

I hang up before he can catch on any more to what I'm feeling.

I glance back down to the test in my hand and curse out loud again as the reality of the situation crashes down again.

"Fuck."

It's not that I'm not excited about the idea of having a kid, it's just that I don't want a kid _now._ I'm going to hell in less than three weeks and I won't even be two months pregnant by then.

Besides, even if I did make it out of this deal alive, is this really the life to raise a kid in? I know how Sam and Dean were raised, and they had some seriously fucked-up childhoods. No child deserves to be told that all their nightmares are real.

I unlock the bathroom door and step out so I can pace across the carpet floor of the motel room, stopping every few turns to pull aside the curtain and peek out for the Impala. It doesn't come for another twenty minutes and by that point I'm starting to get a little irked.

Sam and Dean walk towards the motel, a bag of food and some drinks in their hands, and I open my door and step out to greet them.

"Uh, Sam," I say urgently. "I need to talk to you for a minute."

Both brothers cast me a questioning glance, but Sam hands his bag of food to Dean and says in an almost parent-like voice, "Don't eat my food," as he follows me into my room.

I shut the door behind the two of us.

"What's wrong?" he asks, eyebrows knitting together in worry at my nervous manner.

"Um," I say, swallowing nervously. "I'm p-" I can barely say it. I swallow again and take a deep breath. "I'm pregnant," I rush out, before I can change my mind halfway through.

Sam stands there, unmoving. "You… what?" he says uneasily.

"I'm… pregnant," I say again, this time a little more steadily.

Sam runs a hand through his hair. "Who— when— how?"

"It's yours. I think from that time, three weeks ago. After, uh, I saved you from that vetala. I guess the contraception didn't work as well as we'd hoped, huh?" I say uncomfortably.

"What are we going to do?" Sam asks nervously, dropping onto the edge of the bed in shock. "An abortion?" he suggests. He, like I, doesn't like the idea of having kids, at least in this life. Maybe one day, in a world that doesn't need quite so much saving from the Winchesters, he might settle down and have a family, but not while he's busy fighting monsters.

"No," I say quickly. "Not an abortion." Mostly, it's because I want to keep the baby, but I don't tell him that. Despite everything, I can't help but want a child. "What if we make the best of a bad situation?" I say instead, regaining my composure. "I signed away my soul. But I never signed away the soul of the baby."

Sam looks at me quizzically. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, maybe I can get an extra eight or nine months. At least until this," I say, motioning towards my stomach, "Is over." I hate to talk about the baby like it's just a way to keep living for a little longer and nothing more, but at the time being, it _is_ one of the only options available to us.

Sam runs a hand through his hair again. "But after? You'd leave me to raise a kid? I couldn't… You know how I was raised, I could never…" He seems lost for words.

"Shh, it's okay," I say, sitting down on the bed next to him, taking his hand in mine. "You'd be a better father than your dad ever was, I know it. And if you want, there's always Bobby. If nothing else, he could find someone to take care of the baby."

Sam takes a deep breath. "Okay."

"Sound like a plan?" I say. "Talk to a demon and try to get more time?"

"Yeah," Sam says, still shaken.

"Now I guess we have to tell Dean," I say, glancing at the wall that adjoins his and Sam's room with mine.

"Yeah," Sam says. "Now we have to tell Dean."


	5. Chapter 5

Sam explains the situation to Dean, who eats his burger voraciously despite the unnerving news Sam is sharing, and I pick at the sandwich they brought me. I can't even think about eating right now.

"So… Let me get this straight. Eva… is pregnant. And you want to use the unborn baby as a way to get out of the deal?"

"Not out of the deal. Just to extend it by eight or nine months. We can use the time to figure a way out of the deal."

I roll my eyes. There is no way out. Everyone knows it, despite the fact that they keep pretending otherwise.

"So are we going to go talk to the crossroads demon tonight or not?" Sam says.

"Come on, man, it's almost one in the morning, and we've been driving all day!" Dean groans.

"I don't want to wait an entire day," Sam complains.

"I'd rather get this out of the way now," I agree.

"Come on!" Dean whines again.

"This is important, Dean," I say, unimpressed.

He lets out an exasperated sigh, knowing already he's not getting his way. "Fine. We can go now."

* * *

Roughly thirty minutes later, the three of us are standing at the crossroads, Sam and Dean leaning against the Impala as I bury the box and then walk back over to them. Again, there's no devil's trap. The goal here isn't to catch a demon, just to talk to one.

Sam and Dean look more confident, more in their element. I'd rarely gone up against demons in the past years. I hunted smaller things, like ghosts and werewolves and vampires, things that normal hunters go after. It wasn't until I joined up with the Winchesters that demons started popping up more often. And even then, the brothers had been dealing with them for years up to that point. They're like goddamn magnets for the things.

"Hello, boys," a voice finally says, and the three of us glance up to see none other than the King of the Crossroads himself. Or rather, the King of Hell, at this point, now that Lucifer's locked up tight in the cage. "And girl," Crowley adds in surprise. "I didn't think she'd still be sticking around with you two by this point." He nods at me. "You deserve better than these two numbskulls," he says courteously.

I don't respond, just scowl at him.

He pauses for a moment as he contemplates me, then smiles. "Congratulations, by the way."

I know what he means but I ask anyway. "Congratulations for what?"

"The baby!" Crowley says enthusiastically, motioning vaguely at me. "Who's the father?"

Sam clears his throat and raises a hand up. "That would be me."

"Moose! You're going to be a dad. You must be so excited." He sounds almost sincere, as if we've run across each other at a party rather than meeting in the middle of the night at a crossroads.

"Enough with the pleasantries," I snap. "We came here to talk."

"Only talk?" Crowley asks suspiciously.

"Only talk," I assure him. Dean and Sam are letting me take this one. It's my fight, not theirs, as much as they want to help. "It's about the deal I made."

"Ah, yes, I heard about that," Crowley says. He glances at Sam. "Glad to see you up and about, by the way." He looks back at me and purses his lips. "How long do you have again?"

"T-two weeks left," I stutter. I hadn't meant to say it so unsurely, but saying it out loud makes me realize just how short a period of time I have left. "And, as you pointed out, I'm pregnant."

Crowley furrows his eyebrows and nods thoughtfully.

"The deal was for one soul, not two," I add, though I'm sure he's already figured that out himself.

"Well, we are in a bit of a situation, aren't we?" he says, narrowing his eyes like he's trying to work something out. "Ah!" he finally says, eyes back on the three of us again. "Two birds with one stone."

"Wha—" I start, but then Crowley snaps his fingers and there's a stabbing pain in my abdomen, like period cramps but fifty times worse. I cry out as I fold over from the pain, and Sam and Dean are immediately there to hold me up.

"You okay?" Sam asks softly enough for just me to hear, concern on his face.

"Yeah, yeah, fine," I lie. I push Sam and Dean away and straighten up to face Crowley. "What the fuck was that?" I say in a strained voice, almost a whimper. I'm clutching onto my lower stomach, still having trouble breathing from the pain.

"Simple," Crowley says with a quick smile. "You"—he points to me—"are no longer expecting. And now, there's a nice couple who have been trying unsuccessfully to conceive and who are going to be receiving a pleasant surprise."

"You… you gave my baby to someone else?" I say in a broken voice.

Sam is silent beside me. I don't even know if I want to see the look on his face. Whatever it is, I'm sure it's nothing good. Dean, on the other hand, is angry. "_Not_ cool, Crowley!" he growls furiously.

Crowley raises his eyebrows unsympathetically. "Would you rather have had the baby die along with its mother?"

Dean steps back but fumes silently.

"Glad I could help you lot out," Crowley says, and with a wink, he's gone.

"That son of a bitch!" Dean yells after a moment, to no one and nowhere in particular.

"It's okay, Dean," I say quietly, even though its not. I can't help but be filled with grief like I've had some great loss, even though I'd only found out about the baby a couple of hours ago. "I didn't want the baby anyway," I lie.

Dean grumbles something as he opens the driver's side door and slides in behind the wheel.

"You sure you're okay?" Sam asks, taking my hand in his and giving it a light squeeze. I gaze up into his eyes. He's sad, but not as crushed as I must seem.

"Fine," I say again, but as I say it, a tear slides down my cheek. Sam gently wipes it away with his thumb and pulls me into a tight hug.

"You will be," he says as he releases me.

I laugh, throat thick with tears, and sniff sadly. "Yeah. About the time I'll be headed to hell."

"Forgot about that," Sam says with a lopsided grin.

It fades as we stand there, replaced with look of solemnity on both our faces. There's a sense of understanding passing between us, like we know what we've lost and we know what the other feels like.

"Get in the damn car!" Dean shouts through the rolled-down window, snapping whatever connection Sam and I had been having right then.

I sigh. "Coming, Dean."


	6. Chapter 6

I wake up breathing heavily and covered in a cold sweat, my heart pounding loud and fast. I was pulled out of my sleep by a nightmare, of jet-black eyes and sharp claws and pointy teeth, monsters and demons and worse.

I know I'm not getting back to sleep. Not in the emptiness of this dark room, anyway.

I wish I could. I'm exhausted after only getting a couple hours last night. Dean had stopped by at a liquor store on the way back and we shared a bottle of whiskey, taking shots until it was empty, the only sleep we got from dozing off in our chairs.

We'd had to go out in the morning, to try to figure out the case of who's been snatching local teenagers. Working with a hangover, on little sleep and after an emotionally taxing visit from a demon, was difficult, to say the least, so I really, _really_ need some more rest.

I tiredly pick up my phone from my nightstand and turn it on, squinting my eyes at the sudden bright light. I scroll through my contacts until I find the one I want, and then I hit _Call._

Sam picks up after three rings. "Hello?" he says groggily. I must've woken him up.

"Sam?" I say softly.

"Eva?"

"Yeah."

"Is something wrong?"

"No, not really," I say, even though there is. I'm scared. But I'd never admit that. "I just… was having trouble sleeping, that's all. Did I wake you up? Or Dean?"

"Just me," Sam says. I can hear him yawn.

"Sorry," I grumble.

"No, it's no problem. So what's up? Did you just call because you couldn't sleep?"

"Yeah," I say, biting my lip, debating whether I should say what I'm really thinking or not. I decide to go for it. "And… it's just that I don't want to be alone. When, you know. I will be so soon anyway."

"Oh," comes the voice from the other end of the line.

I'm starting to wonder if he hung up and went back to sleep when he adds, "I'll be right over."

There's a beep as he hangs up and ten seconds later there's a knock on the door.

I open the door for him and he steps in, still wearing his jeans and at least two layers of shirts, hair only slightly mussed from sleep. I, on the other hand, am looking very sloppy in a t-shirt and sweats, short hair sticking up wildly in every direction. I'm too tired to bring myself to care.

"Hey," I say, the corner of my mouth quirking up. The images of monsters flashing in the back of my mind since waking up finally stop, now that he's here.

"Hey," he replies.

I go and crawl back into bed, leaving him to close the door and then come over. He settles himself down on the bed so that he's on top of the covers, and I'm underneath.

He wraps an arm around me and I snuggle up next to him, relaxing in the warmth radiating off him. It's so relieving to not be alone. I'm sleepy again, now that the adrenalin from the dream has had time to fade and Sam's calming presence is nearby.

"Why couldn't you sleep?" Sam asks softly, his lips pressed lightly against my hair.

"Nightmare," I mutter. "I feel better now."

"Oh," Sam says understandingly. "It's okay. I've got you."

"No," I just say, too tired to explain that no, I don't need anyone else to protect me, I'm perfectly capable of it myself.

He seems to get it though, doesn't push for an explanation. He knows how I am with these things.

"Thanks for coming over, Sam," I murmur, my words slightly slurred by sleepiness.

"No problem," he says softly, voice still clear, unlike mine. I don't know how he can stay so alert on so little sleep.

I want to stay awake, to ask Sam what we're going to do now, or… to ask if he wanted kids and a family, or a normal life, or if he wanted kids with _me_… I want to talk to him about us and if we might be something more and if he'd have wanted the baby if I'd been able to keep it because it was his but also mine and if when he thought about having a normal, apple-pie life, it was me there beside him in that cookie-cutter house watching our children play on a neatly-trimmed lawn.

But I don't ask him any of that. The thoughts start to slip from my mind as I start dozing off.

I'm able to get out one sentence before I'm completely gone. "I love you, Sam," I hum quietly.

"I love you too, Eva," he murmurs back.

* * *

With our last chance of delaying the deal gone, we try to forget about it for the final two weeks. There are some differences, though. I treat myself to milkshakes and burgers instead of sticking with the usual salad that I would get to match Sam's. I get to ride in the front of the Impala when I want to. I get first pick for what job I want to take when we're out working on the case (as far as we can tell, a werewolf). I always choose the one that requires the least amount of effort.

It's almost possible to forget that I'm going to hell during the day. A sort of lingering sense of malaise stays with me, always, but it doesn't distract too much.

It's night that's the really gets me. After bothering Sam once in the middle of the night, I try to get by without him. I'll have to in hell, won't I? I'll have no one to look after me then. So when I wake up from the inevitable nightmares with a startled gasp, I just sit in the dark, trying to count to a million to calm myself down enough to sleep again.

It doesn't help a lot. My mind still wanders. _You'll be dead in a matter of days._ Ten days. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five.

At four days left, we kill the werewolf in the town.

At three days, we tie up loose ends: make sure the werewolf was the only one around, all the missing people have their bodies accounted for, etcetera.

I have two days left when I start seeing things. I can't tell if its the proximity to my death-date or just the fact that I'm so sleep-deprived. I sometimes have to ask Sam and Dean to repeat things because one or both of them shift into monstrous beings when I look at them and I can't hear a word they're saying. When I try to do read any large amount of text, the words rearrange and shift, repeating words like _hell_ or _you're dead._

Tonight's my last full night before I'm gone.

Dean's out picking up as much salt as he can for when we—_I_, I correct myself—get a visit from the hellhounds.

It's just me and Sam in the motel room, loading rock salt rounds alone.

"Ugh," I groan after finishing the ones in front of me. I stand up to stretch and then go plop down on the edge of the bed. I close my eyes and hold my head in my hands. I'm so tired. I just wish I could sleep.

"I'm gonna die," I say after a few moments of silence.

"You're not," Sam says quietly.

"I am."

No response. I can hear him get up and come sit down next to me, though.

"Eva," he says, moving one of my arms down so he can see my face and tilting my chin up towards him as I open my eyes. I'd scowl but I just don't have the energy.

"I…" he starts. It sounds like the beginning of something emotional for him. But he stops, a conflicted look on his face. He cups my face in his hand. "I…" he starts again. But his face is too close to mine and somehow the few inches between us disappears, my lips meeting his in a tentative kiss. Sam's hands run down my back, pulling me closer to him, and suddenly we're kissing each other hungrily, unable to get enough of each other during these final hours before I'm headed towards eternal damnation.

"Wait," I gasp out, pushing Sam away. "I can't."

"What?" Sam asks, brows furrowed in concern.

"I can't, not now. I'm…" I give a forced laugh and gesture at myself. "Sleep-deprived, hallucinating, and basically just a mess. I can't do this now." I bite my lip and watch Sam's face. He takes a deep breath and nods.

"Okay," he says softly, his bright, sad eyes still focused on my tired ones.

There's the sound of the doorknob turning, and the door opens for Dean to come in, holding several bags of rock salt.

"Hey," he says, glancing between the two of us. "Am I interrupting anything?"

"No," both of us say at the same time.

"Okay," Dean says suspiciously. "Well, I got a shit-ton of salt, so we should be pretty well stocked up for the next…" He glances up at the ceiling as he makes an estimation. "The next year or two."

I smile weakly. "You guys'll be nice and stocked up when I'm not around to run errands for us anymore."

"I didn't get all this salt just for you to die," Dean says bluntly, raising his eyebrows at me as if daring me to challenge him. I shrug. "Anyway, Bobby called. Said we need to head about five hundred miles west."

"What? Why?" I ask.

"Six people dead, hearts torn out of their chests."

"So? Sounds like another werewolf. Can't somebody else take care of it?"

"I wasn't done," Dean says, shushing me. "On top of that there's been electrical storms, temperature fluctuations… Bobby thinks it's pointing to—"

"A demon," Sam finishes with a frown. "A powerful one."

"And we have to take care of this _now_, because…?" I ask.

"Last time we saw things like this…" Sam shakes his head. "We were searching for the demon that killed our mom."

"Oh," I say. "You don't think he's back, do you?"

"No, he can't be. I shot him myself," Dean says, a malicious but sure undertone to his voice. "We need to check it out anyway, because whatever it is, it's powerful."

"And it probably has something to do with you guys in some way or another, right?" I ask, rolling my eyes.

"Something like that."

"How far did you say it was?" Sam asks. "Five hundred miles?"

"About ten hours."

"Eva?" Sam glances towards me. "You okay with this? We could wait for a couple days."

I laugh darkly. "What, until I'm dead? No, I don't think so. I'm coming with you."

"All right," Dean says with a shrug. "Better leave tonight, then."

I stand up and shrug on my jacket. "Great. Let's get headed out, then."

I glance at the clock on the nightstand. Midnight.

Twenty-four hours left.


	7. Chapter 7

_Author's Note: I am actual trash. I am so sorry it took three weeks for me to upload this, and I don't know how long it will take until the next chapter. :/ Thanks for being so patient!_

* * *

By the time we get to the town in the southern US, the death toll's risen to seven. All the same: chest torn open, heart missing.

Death number eight is called into the police line just as we're getting settled into our motel room.

Dean and Sam try to get me to stay back at the motel room and rest, but despite how tired I am, I refuse. I'm not going to let them go and investigate without me.

The body is of a nineteen-year-old boy, found by his roommate in their apartment, and its a gory sight. Chest ripped open, ribs cracked apart, heart gone. One of the police officers gags and rushes to the bathroom when he sees it and I hear the sounds of him emptying his stomach soon after. Sam, Dean, and I have seen worse. Hell, we've _done_ worse. I mean, decapitating a vampire doesn't leave very pretty results.

Sam and Dean are kneeling next to the body, wearing latex gloves to examine it for any evidence of the supernatural, as I stand staring glumly out the window. There's a few passerby, but all of them have at least one or two other people with them. I guess the thought of a serial killer on the loose is keeping people cautious.

A wave of fatigue washes over me. I wish I could've just slept one last night peacefully, uninterrupted by nightmares. Couldn't I just have been given that?

I turn around and walk over to Sam and Dean. "Agent Stark, Agent Banner," I say, interrupting them from their work. They glance up. "I'm gonna head out."

"How come?" Sam says.

"I need some coffee or I'm not gonna be able to make it another five minutes."

Sam straightens up. "Want me to come with you?"

"No, I'll be good. I'm just going across the street," I say, nodding in the direction of the coffee shop below.

"All right. If you're sure."

I roll my eyes. "Yes, Sam. I'm sure. Just text me, 'kay? Let me know where to meet you."

Sam looks like he wants to argue, but Dean interjects, "Sounds good."

I nod. "See you in a few."

I step into the hall and trot down the stairs and out into the street. I pause just before I'm about to cross the street because something catches my eye: there's a woman, by herself. Weird, considering how everyone is walking in pairs. I watch her walk down the street casually, not as worried-looking as the other people around her.

When she reaches a space between two buildings, she glances around furtively before ducking into the alley, and in the half-second that she's facing me, I take a sharp intake of breath. I know without a doubt she's a demon, her true form revealed underneath her vessel, and she's terrifying.

I should call Sam and Dean and wait for them, but I'll lose her if I don't act quickly enough. So I send them a quick text - _There's a demon. I'm going after her. Use GPS on my phone to find me. _

I cross the street. Go down the alley. It's a dead end, just garbage bins back here, with no one in sight. I walk tentatively down towards the end, taking my knife from my inside pocket and unsheathing it. I hold it tightly, warily…

Suddenly there's a hand covering my nose and mouth and a knife held to my throat, and I let out a muffled shout. I hadn't even heard anyone approach, even with the keen senses of a hunter.

"Glad you could make it," a voice purrs in my ear, unmistakably British, as I struggle for air. I claw at the hand preventing me from breathing and try stomping on the foot of the person behind me, but nothing I do seems to even bother her.

My lungs are burning, running out of oxygen too quickly. My struggling slows as the edges of my vision start to darken and then everything goes black.

* * *

When I wake up, I'm sitting in a chair, ankles tied to its legs and arms tied behind its back.

"Fuck," I say out loud, looking around. I'm somewhere dark and dank and probably underground. A basement, maybe. It's mostly empty, except for a few crates in the corner. My phone, cracked and broken, is sitting on one of them. I have no clue how Sam and Dean are going to find me now.

And, of course, the woman standing in front of me with a dark smile on her face. She looks normal, mostly. Trench coat over a skirt suit. Black high heels. Brown hair tied up in a high ponytail. The big difference is the face under that of her meatsuit's, flickering in and out of visibility. A demon's face, I know without a doubt. Yeah, I fucked up big time.

"Good morning, sunshine," she says. I glare at her in response. "Hey, no need to be so grumpy."

"What time is it?" is the first question out of my mouth. I can't stop it. I only have hours left, and who knows how long I spent unconscious.

"Around noon, I think," she says. She smiles sadistically, and I know she knows about my deal. Twelve hours. It could be worse. I was only out for maybe half an hour.

"Why am I here?" I growl as threateningly as I can. It's tough to do when I'm hours away from death and tied up in somebody's basement. Doesn't stop me from trying, though.

The woman tsks. "You work with the Winchesters. I saw you and them, pulling into town in that unmistakable ugly car of theirs."

"And? You didn't answer my question," I say forcefully.

She rolls her eyes. "Information. I assume you're more to them than just a whore?"

I scowl. "Shut the fuck up. You don't know anything."

She grins and continues, "I do know they're looking into my actions here. Which isn't going to work."

"Why? What are you doing?" I ask.

She laughs. "As if I'd tell you." There's a moment of silence as she watches me contemplatively. "But I need to ask you about some things."

"As if I'd tell you," I say hostilely, repeating her words.

"Cheeky, aren't you? I don't think you have a choice," she says, voice eerily calm. She picks up a blade—my blade, I notice with a flash of anger—from the top of a pile of boxes, and saunters towards me.

"Would you like to talk now, while you have the chance?"

"Never," I spit.

"You have nothing to gain, you know. I know about your deal. What's the point of squandering your last few hours in pain just to protect two boys who barely care about you?"

"You. Don't. Know. Anything." I spit the words from behind clenched teeth.

"I'm sure."

"They're going to find me and kill you. No." I pause, a new idea coming to my mind. "They're going to let me go, and then _I'm_ going to kill you."

The woman is standing close now, too close. She flips the knife in her hand so the blade is out and makes a quick slash down my face. I scream as my cheek is torn open, warm blood already running down. I've had worse, but it still stings like hell.

"How much do you and your boys know about my plans?" she asks, coldly as I try to calm my erratic breathing.

I swallow. "Everything. We know everything."

"Oh, really. I suppose you know what the entire endeavor is here with collecting hearts, then."

"Of course," I say calmly.

She watches me with a slight smile, crossing her arms. "I'm waiting," she says after a moment.

"The spell," I say, hoping I'm somewhere in the right area.

Her smile widens. "You have no idea. Good. Next order of business. The Winchesters. Tell me, did they get back the Colt? Do they have any other weapons like it?"

I grit my teeth and stay silent.

"Come on," she says, dragging the knife slowly but forcefully across my collarbone. I clench my teeth, trying not to scream. "You can tell me."

I say nothing.

"This doesn't have to be as difficult as you're making it," the demon says with a sigh.

But of course it does. She spends ten minutes, fifteen, twenty asking questions that get only snide comments in response. I'm pretty sure she's at the point where she's planning to kill me, the cool anger permeating off her in waves, when there's a bang upstairs and the woman swears. Evidently something's gone wrong. I can only hope it's who I think it is.

"Sam! Dean! D—" The demon backhands me before I can finish, shutting me up and eliciting a gasp of pain, but they've already heard. There's the quick clunking of feet on the stairs as someone runs down. Sam and Dean rush into the room, guns held up. Their aims immediately fly to the woman's head, but in the same second, there's the cold metal of my knife pressed to my throat.

"Hello, boys," she says from behind me. "Haven't seen you in a while." At the confused looks on their faces, she lets out a sound of exasperation. "You don't remember? All the fun times we had as the two of us"—she nods at Dean—"lived out the last year of our deals?"

There's a moment of silence. "Bela?" Dean says incredulously.

"You _know_ her?" I exclaim, but gasp as the knife is held closer. It nicks my skin and I feel a drop of blood swell up.

"I wasn't expecting you to drop in quite so quickly," the woman—Bela—says.

"Yeah, well," Dean says, swapping his gun for the demon knife. I feel Bela tense up behind me as she notices it. "You know us. Can't stay away from trouble."

"Put down the knife and we might be able to work something out that doesn't result in the death of your friend," she says.

I shake my head subtly. _Don't put it down, Dean. Kill her, even if I die too._

He flips it over in his hand but doesn't set it down, though he and Sam are both wary.

"I'll give you five seconds," Bela says coldly.

"You wouldn't," Dean says.

"Four."

"Think about this first, Bela."

"Three."

I swallow nervously. Dean clenches his jaw.

"Two."

_Kill her, _I mouth at Dean.

Bela never reaches one. Dean sends the knife spinning through the air towards her head but in the same instant, the knife at my throat presses down and slices and there's a flash of pain and suddenly I'm drowning in my own blood and completely unable to take a breath that I need so badly and the presence behind me is gone—_she got away_—and everything is going so slow and so fast and _I'm going to hell I'm going to hell I'm going to hell _and Sam is yelling something and Dean is already rushing towards me but the world is already fading away and


	8. Chapter 8

The first time I'd run across Sam and Dean was in a town in Wisconsin.

It was the fourth or fifth month on my own, apart from any hunters, but I'd had several years of training, so I knew what I was doing. I had been racking up kills of the supernatural, keeping track of them in a leather-bound journal with everything I was learning along the way. A lot of hunters I'd known had done the same, which is how I'd picked up the habit.

This time, I'd spent a week and a half following leads, investigating as a "journalist," and picking apart the case. I'd determined it was a shapeshifter and had tracked it to an abandoned water tower on the edge of the town. It had escaped and I'd pursued it, but by the time I'd caught up, it had already been killed.

Recently, actually. It was dark, but I could see the two men standing over the body, one unusually tall and the other a bit shorter with bowed legs. When they heard me, they'd looked over, quickly hiding their silver knives behind their backs.

Hunters.

_Male_ hunters, no less.

I'd stopped in frustration and tried to suppress the boiling rage I was feeling. I'd spent _a week and a half _trailing this sorry son of a bitch, and they'd just gone and wasted that precious time.

"Um, hey, our buddy's just really drunk, we're trying to help get him home!" the shorter one calls to me, trying to make up a story to avoid suspicion.

I ground my teeth. "You took my kill!" I turned and sprinted off, because while I'd love to beat the living crap out of an arrogant hunter with his head up his ass, I didn't like the odds of two to one.

"Hey, wait!" one of them called after me, but I'd ignored them and kept going, not stopping until I was back at my car and safe.

The next time I met the two of them was only a week later in southern Illinois. Turned out we'd followed the same case there.

I'd met them as I was interviewing a woman who claimed her long-dead husband had visited her a few nights before. I'd been pretending to be a journalist again; it was much easier to pull off than a government official, and people weren't as likely to question me about it. It meant less access, but less going wrong if someone was suspicious. But those two had barged right into my conversation, dressed in their fancy suits and flashing fake FBI badges, pushing me aside to talk to the woman.

I recognized them. It had been dark and they'd been fairly far away, but they were a pretty distinctive pair. Of course I'd waited until they finished their investigation and then confronted them about it outside the woman's house, in front of their black car that was reminiscent of my own in its nearly-extinct and decades-old style.

I'd almost panicked when they told me who they were. I was ready to get in my car and drive to the opposite end of the country as quickly as I could.

Sam and Dean Winchester.

The men who started and ended the Apocalypse. Befriended an angel _and_ a demon. Both had gone to heaven and hell and back. They were among the best hunters the world had ever seen, able to kill every supernatural being they'd run across: vampires, werewolves, shape shifters, fairies, dragons, demons, angels. Everything.

And Sam Winchester. I'd been explicitly told by every hunter I'd worked with to stay away from him. Anyone who'd seen him hunt in the past year knew he was ruthless, killing without hesitation and accepting any casualties along the way so long as the goal was accomplished.

Still, now that I was here in front of him he seemed nice enough. Sweet, even.

But I'd learned the hard way that first impressions can be misleading.

I'm not sure why I stayed, but I did. They agreed to work with me as long as I wasn't a burden. They didn't work with amateurs, as Dean pointed out. I rolled my eyes at that. Me, an amateur? Yeah, right.

I hated working with other hunters, especially men. But these guys had several decades on me in hunting experience and they'd take this hunt from me too if I didn't work with them.

Despite my sulkiness and lack of trust, we managed to solve the case pretty well together. We didn't say a lot outside of what we had to. I learned Dean liked pie, Sam liked books, and both of them would complain every time Justin Bieber came on the radio. Dean tried flirting with me a few times but got the impression quickly enough that if he continued, his head would end up separated from his body. But really, they weren't nearly as bad or terrifying as the legends made them out to be.

After the case we'd split up again, but somehow we ended up running into each other a few weeks later on _another_ case, since we'd been mostly going around the same area since Wisconsin.

It was sort of nice having company, actually. When they made inside jokes, I understood quite a few of them, sometimes even smiled in spite of myself. They dispelled some of the rumors I'd heard about them ("I have not slept with the Tooth Fairy, I have no idea where that even came from") and confirmed some of the others ("Yeah, Sam, he… had no soul for a while, and, well… he wasn't quite himself").

I tried to remain distant and unattached to them, but the camaraderie between the two of them was strong enough to pull me in and make me feel included, even if there was a lot that I could never understand about them the way they understood each other.

Once I'd overheard them whispering about me.

"Maybe we should split up," Sam had said unsurely. "I don't know if we can really trust her."

"Are you kidding? She's one of the best hunters we've ever worked with," Dean had replied.

I'd smiled to myself. I knew I was good, but it was sort of nice to have the feeling affirmed by two of the best hunters in existence.

After that case, we'd agreed to keep working together.

It was a couple weeks later when Sam had been in my motel room as Dean was out doing reconnaissance and one thing had lead to another and whoops, we slept together. Accidents do happen. Though admittedly, that accident was not a bad one. It said a lot that I had allowed myself to sleep with Sam, given it was the first time in more than a year, ever since _that night_. I cared about Dean a lot, for sure, but Sam was the one who was my best friend.

Over the next year of me working with them, I'd changed without even noticing. I was friendlier and kinder and much closer to a semblance of my old self, back before I'd had my naivety crushed. I talked about my insecurities with Sam and Dean, which was something I never would have dreamed of doing before. Telling someone all my weaknesses, someone who could very well use them against me, was something I'd grown incredibly wary of.

I'd finally healed from my angry, bitter shell of a person, unwilling to face fears and admit failings, to someone who knew that tears didn't mean I was weak and leaning on someone wasn't the stupidest idea in the world.

I'd finally found a home.


	9. Chapter 9

_A/N: I stole part of this chapter and adapted it from a one shot I wrote a long time ago. Anyway. Sorry in advance, Sam lovers._

* * *

I take a deep breath. I'm standing in front of the motel room door that Sam and Dean are staying in for the case they're working on, trying to muster up the courage to knock. They haven't seen me in months. I haven't seen them in decades. Time passes a lot slower in hell.

Hesitantly, I knock on the door. I can just imagine the boys inside, exchanging looks and wondering who's visiting them at this time of night. It takes a few moments before the lock on the door clicks open and the door opens a bit.

It's Dean. I'm glad it's him and not the other brother because I'm not sure if I can handle seeing him yet.

He just stands there, his eyes wide, his mouth opening and closing as he tries to come up with something to say, and then he closes the door in my face.

I'm standing there in shock, wondering what to do next, when the door reopens and I'm splashed with water. I splutter and make an annoyed noise but at least now I understand I'm not being turned away. Holy water. He's making sure I'm actually me. He grabs my hand and, pulling out a silver knife, gives me a quick cut on the side of my wrist.

I wince but don't pull my hand away.

"Eva?" he finally says quietly, his voice cracking. He looks at the floor. "I'm sorry. I didn't think… I didn't think it could actually be you. I had to make sure you weren't a shifter or something worse."

"Dean?" a voice calls from somewhere behind him in the room, and I can't help but flinch a little bit. Sam. Dean's ignores him as he pulls me into a hug. I just stand there limply, not hugging back. It's nice, having the presence of another human so close after so much time, but… Hugging's not my thing. Not anymore, anyway.

"Dean, who is it?" Sam says again, and I can hear his footsteps approaching.

"Look who's back from the dead," Dean says, a smile in his voice. He lets go of me and steps back so Sam can see me.

I pale as soon as I see him, and he just stands there in complete shock. I'm starting to think he's turned into a statue when finally he takes a quick step towards me, like he's going to give me a hug like Dean did. I know I should tolerate it like I did Dean's, but I impulsively spin my blade from my pocket into my hand and hold it in front of me defensively.

Sam's open arms drop. He bites his lip and turns away, trying to hide the hurt expression on his face. I slowly lower my knife, embarrassed of my automatic reaction.

"Eva," Dean says cautiously. "What happened down there?"

I clench my jaw. "I think you know," I say in a voice I'm trying my hardest to keep from shaking.

Sam still isn't looking looking at me when he says, "Did I… I mean, did the demons…"

"Yeah. Thirty-five years in hell, tortured by demons with your face."

Sam curses and turns away from me.

I know Sam—_this_ Sam—isn't a demon. But it's instinctive now.

In hell, at first, I had known it wasn't him. It was just a demon trying to get to me, trying to make me as miserable as possible physically and emotionally. I reminded myself over and over and over, _This isn't Sam. This isn't Sam. This isn't Sam._ But after a while, I'd came to associate that face with the worst pain I had ever known, and it became hard to connect his image with any good memories.

I look up at Dean and address him. "We need to talk about—" I glance at Sam out of the corner of my eye and shift nervously. "He…" I start to say, focusing on Dean's face again. "I can't… Can't…" I search for the right word. Finally I just shake my head. "I just can't."

Sam doesn't need any further explanation. He grabs his jacket from a hook by the door and the keys from the table and marches out. I watch him until he's in the Impala and pulling away before stepping into the room and pushing the door shut behind me.

"You okay?" Dean asks.

I let out a huff and storm over to drop onto the bed. I lay there looking at the ceiling, filled with an overwhelming desire to just close my eyes and sleep.

But I answer Dean's question anyway. "Hell is not a nice place, Dean."

"I know," he says, his voice softening with sympathy. He knows all too well what it's like, living in hell.

There's a moment of silence before he asks, "Why did you come back to us, if you knew how it would feel to be around Sam?"

"The demon who broke me out told me to."

"The demon who broke you out? How did they— Who was it? Why did they help you?"

I sigh in exasperation. "Long story. I'm exhausted. I'll tell you in the morning."

"But—"

"In the morning."

He doesn't respond.

"And I'm taking this bed," I say forcefully, as if daring him to challenge me. I scoot up and then under the covers and curl up, not even bothering to change out of my dirt-crusted jeans and boots.

"That's… mine. Nevermind," he sighs.

The lights stay on but I don't care. It's nice to finally get some sleep after so long without it.


	10. Chapter 10

The next morning, I'm all rested up and eating a chocolate muffin (god, how I missed these things) when Sam stumbles in, smelling strongly of alcohol and a late evening.

Dean and I don't say anything, just watch silently as he sits down on the edge of the bed and places his head in his hands. I can tell Dean's noticed how much I've tensed up because of Sam's presence, because his eyes are fixated on me.

Dean clears his throat uncomfortably. "Eva was just telling me how she got out of hell."

"Yeah?" Sam asks, not even hiding his complete lack of interest. He's definitely hung over. His head is probably killing him right now.

"Turns out she was busted out by one of our old friends," Dean continues.

"Mmhmm."

"You remember Meg?"

Sam looks up at Dean, groggy but attentive now. "Meg?"

I sigh and say, "Yeah, she helped me out. It's complicated."

"We've got time." Sam is watching me warily, as if I'm going to come at him with a knife again. It's not a sure thing that I won't, actually. No, Sam is an ally, I remind myself tiredly in an attempt to get the thought out of my head.

I let out a huff of exasperation. "Well, she found me a few days ago. In earth time, I mean. The short version is she freed me and snuck me out through Purgatory and then through a portal back into earth. Humans-only portal," I clarify. "No monsters can get out.

"But she told me that I had to find you guys right away. There's something big going down - with Bela. Remember those hearts she was collecting? She used them in a spell to open Lucifer's cage. But not enough for the angels to escape. Meg didn't clarify on why Bela opened it, but…" I shrug. "Now something's out of the cage and Bela is trying to get something for a new client."

Sam lets out a noise of disbelief. "She's still doing that? Even after dying and coming back as a demon? I thought she would've at least gone on to bigger and better things."

"Apparently. But this is an important thing. Meg didn't know what it was, but this client is pretty big, I guess. So Bela's willing to go pretty far to get it. Meg told me she hasn't done much yet, but she has big plans."

Sam ponders what I've said for a few moments. "But what got out of the cage?"

"I was wondering the same thing," Dean said.

"There wasn't much in it. As far as we know, it was just Lucifer and Michael and their vessels. And I'm here, so that means…"

"Crap," Dean says, running a hand down his face tiredly. "Adam."

"Crap," Sam says, a similar expression of disbelief on his face.

"Who?" I demand.

"Our brother," Dean says.

"You have a brother?" I ask incredulously. "And you haven't mentioned this now because…?"

There's an awkward silence.

"Well," Dean says with a casual shrug, with as much dismissiveness as he can muster. "We got a little sidetracked. It happens."

I let out a noise of disgust. "You forgot about your fucking brother?"

"Half-brother," Sam corrects.

"You went to the trouble to get Sam out of hell but not your other brother," I say disbelievingly.

"Technically, it was Cas that got Sam out of hell," Dean says defensively. "And Death gave me the option between getting Sam's soul back, or Adam's, and it's not a surprise who I chose."

"And then you just forgot about him?" I ask, eyebrows raised. "You two are fucking unbelievable. You left your brother locked up with the two angriest and most powerful angels in creation for… how long? Two years? Three? And now a demon has just released him, for who knows what reason."

"Come on, it's not like we could have seen that coming," Sam says.

"You left him locked up for years!" I snap, causing Sam to wince. I'd almost forgotten about his hangover. "Is that what you did with me? Just left me to rot? I guess that's what you do with everyone besides each other, right? You say family has to look out for each other but you couldn't even bother to look into the imprisonment of your own brother!"

"We would never leave you in hell without looking for a way out of it, Eva," Sam says, voice shaking a little bit. "We were searching for a way to get you back from the second you died."

I turn away, jaw clenched. "Well, you sure did a good job helping me out," I grumble sarcastically.

"Eva," Sam pleads.

I stand up and toss my empty muffin wrapper on the table. "I'm going out," I tell them, not even looking at them.

"Eva," Sam says again, standing up and putting a hand lightly on my arm.

I jerk away instinctively, spinning around and staring at him with wide eyes as my heart races far past its normal speed. I hold up a hand to keep him distanced from me as I back up, trying not to tremble in nervousness. "Don't."

"I'm sorry, I forgot—"

Scowling at him, I turn and stride towards the motel room's door, careful to make sure he's not following me. I turn and give them one last contemptuous look before slipping out the door and slamming it shut behind me.

* * *

You don't matter to them. They left you in hell. The persistent voice in the back of my mind pesters me as I sit on top of the roof of a nearby diner with my legs hanging over the edge, tossing pebbles at the ground. It's six in the morning so hardly anybody is out to start with, but it's also all alone a quarter mile from any other building out on this lonely road.

I hear a slight sound of gravel crunching and whip around.

It's Dean, standing about ten feet away. He holds his hands up in surrender when he sees the furious look I'm giving him.

"I just came to talk," he said.

"I don't want to talk," I snap.

Dean comes and sits down next to me anyway. I'm struck with a sudden urge to push him off the roof.

"You haven't been yourself since you got back, Eva. I'm worried about you."

I sigh heavily. "Can we not talk about this now? I'm not really up for a heart to heart at the moment."

"What happened to you in hell that changed you so much?" Dean asks, watching me closely.

I'm still stubbornly focusing on the ground below. "Aren't you always the one who's against chick flick moments? I'm sensing a little hypocrisy here."

"I'm serious, Eva," he says. I can still feel his eyes on me.

I take a deep breath and close my eyes. I count to ten before opening them and turning to look at Dean. "I was naive, once. And then I got smart, realized how to act to receive as little damage as possible. And then you and Sam lulled me into a false sense of security. Hell opened my eyes again, Dean."

He stays silent, but he's still watching me. His gaze is getting a little too intense, so my eyes flick back to the road.

"I learned a long time ago, and I should've remembered, that you can't trust anybody. And you can't get close to anybody. Because if they don't betray you themselves, they will end up hurting you in the end. You know, before I went to hell, I thought I was in love with Sam. But that just ended up being a liability. They actually had something to use against me down there."

Dean doesn't say anything and the seconds pass slowly. I can't stand not knowing what he's thinking so I look up at him.

He's hiding whatever he's thinking really well. All I see is his regular firm expression observing me carefully.

He finally breaks the long silence before I do. "I've been in this life a lot longer than you have, and I can tell you that's the wrong way to think." He pauses, and I'm about to interrupt when he continues, "If you go too long with nothing to hold on to, you're going to get lost. And when you have no one to keep going for, to try for…" Dean shakes his head. "That's a thousand times worse than how you feel when you lose someone. I promise you."

I scowl and turn away from him.

"I don't think that's how it works," I say just loudly enough for him to hear my while I'm facing away from him.

Dean sighs in resignation. "Here," he says, tapping my arm to get my attention. He's holding out a flask.

"Thanks," I say warily, taking it from him, unscrewing the cap, and taking a few long glugs. The alcohol burns on the way down to my stomach and I cough from the disgusting taste. I take another sip.

"Thought you might need that," he says, nodding towards the flask.

"I do." I keep sipping from it, starting to feel a light buzz.

"You know, after you went downstairs…" Dean starts, but he cuts himself off.

"Yeah?" I ask tiredly. "Were you gonna finish that sentence."

"Nevermind," he says dismissively. "It doesn't matter."

"Just fucking tell me," I growl.

"Woah, touchy," he says, leaning back like I'm going to explode.

"I am not fucking touchy! You're just an asshole!" I tell him angrily.

His face cracks into a smile and he laughs.

I let out a noise of annoyance and twist my mouth into a grimace. I stand up and brush of my pants, tossing the mostly-empty flask down next to Dean before storming over to the side of the building I climbed up on, where there's a downspout going down to the ground.

I hear Dean scramble to his feet and follow me as I start climbing down.

"So where's Sam?" I call up at him as I reach the ground and hop down.

"Probably curled into a ball crying back in the motel room because of the way you're treating him," Dean says as he starts climbing down.

"It's not my fault," I say irritatedly.

"Sure it is," he says as steps onto the ground and turns to face me. "You can't help what helped in hell, but you can at least try to treat the guy a little better. He's sensitive."

"Yeah, well, I hate him. So he'll just have to deal." I start walking towards the front of the diner.

"You know that's not true," Dean says, hurrying to catch up with me.

"Mmhmm."

"Whatever it was in hell that you dealt with was not my brother," he says firmly.

"Yeah, it just doesn't seem that way." There's a pinch in my voice as I think back to the time before I'd gone to hell. The memories are tinged with blood now, from all the times I tried to hold onto them as an anchor when I was getting my skin peeled off or carved to pieces or burnt down to little more than a blackened skeleton. Just to be reset at the end of every day, of course.

But even with that stain on the memories, there's an irresistible desire to go back to how things used to be. It was so easy, splitting all of my burdens with another person. Having someone to look after, and someone to look after me.

"Are we going into the diner?" Dean says suddenly, interrupting my thoughts.

"Yeah," I say, like it's obvious. It should be. I mean, there's nowhere else to go, really.

"Why?"

"I'm hungry. That chocolate muffin barely tided me over on the way over here. It was a two-mile walk."

Just as we're about to round the corner to the front of the building, where the door is, there's the sound of a car, and the Impala pulls off the road and into the parking lot. It pulls to a stop in a spot and the purr of the engine cuts off before Sam climbs out.

"Fuck," I grumble as he notices us and starts walking over, keeping his eyes focused firmly on the ground, completely unable to meet mine.

"Great," Dean says, clapping me on the shoulder. "Now the three of us will have a time to talk."


	11. Chapter 11

We're sitting in the diner with our plates of pancakes in front of us virtually untouched. Dean is the only one eating, and he's stuffing his face like he can't eat enough. Besides the sounds of Dean's fork scraping against his plate, there's complete silence.

"So did Dean talk to you?" Sam finally says. He still looks groggy, tired, and slightly hung over.

"Yeah," I say, staring at him blankly.

He clears his throat awkwardly. "Okay." He leaves it at that, but I know he's going to ask Dean for more details about it later. There's an awkward silence for a few moments before he says out of the blue, "Should we find a job?"

I let out a huff of exasperation. "In the middle of all this? You mean Bela trying to find a mysterious object of mass destruction and your missing half-brother aren't enough work?" I say sourly.

"No, it's just… we don't have any leads on that, so we might as well keep working in the meantime. If… if you're feeling up to it," Sam says cautiously. I can tell he's trying not to set me off. Yeah, right, like I'm that touchy. Well, maybe I am. I do seem jumpier than usual around Sam.

"Of course I am," I snap. "You got any ideas?" I cross my arms in front of me on the table.

"Yeah, actually," Sam says, pulls out his laptop and clicks a few buttons before spinning it around towards me and Dean. "I came across this on a news site. It happened not too far from here, maybe two or three hours away?"

I look at the title of the short article that's pulled up, the date from yesterday. _ Woman survives attack and disfigurement by an unknown assailant_. I slowly scroll down the page as I read the article.

_**"Twenty-five-year-old Jane Davis was attacked yesterday near her home on Main Street at 2AM and left in critical condition. A nearby neighbor who was still awake was alerted by a scream and rushed outside to help, but found Davis already unconscious with deep cuts extending from the corners of her mouth to her ears. The neighbor reports that she did not see anyone else nearby. Paramedics were able to arrive quickly, limit blood loss, and stabilize Davis's condition. Davis has not yet regained consciousness but investigation of the assailant is underway."**_

"I don't see how this is our type of thing," I say doubtfully after reading the article.

"I didn't think so either, but it happened in one of the safest towns in the state, so crime, especially something as violent as this, is an anomaly. And I found this comment."

He scrolls down a little further to the comment section. There's four comments, three of them commenting about how tragic the situation is and speculating about a sudden assault in an otherwise peaceful town. The fourth is different:

**_abbyotsuka03_ commented:**

**_It was Kuchisake Onna, a ghost. I saw her last week. She covers her face and asks you if she's beautiful, and when you say yes, she'll reveal her face and the two gashes at the corners of her mouth and ask you again if she's beautiful. If you say yes, she'll cut your mouth, but if you say no, she'll cut off your head. Be careful. If you stay out after dark, stick with friends._**

I'm doubtful that this could mean anything but I ask anyway, "Who's Kuchisake Onna? Has she shown up before?"

"She's a Japanese ghost," Sam says, pulling the computer towards him to type something in. "The Slit-Mouthed Woman. The legend has it that she was a beautiful woman and when her husband thought she was cheating, he cut open her mouth from ear to ear." He finishes typing and turns the computer back towards us, now showing the Wikipedia article on the ghost. "Now she's a ghost. She attacks victims like this commenter explained. There was a big panic about it in Japan back in the seventies."

I skim over the article. Sam pretty much covered it. I can see the similarity between the attack on Jane Lewis and the ghost, but I have the feeling that the commenter had just read about Kuchisake Onna and wanted to bring attention to themselves by pretending she's real.

I look over at Dean and raise my eyebrows to express that I'm still unimpressed, but he shrugs thoughtfully before looking at Sam again.

"I just think it's something worth looking into," Sam says. "I've looked everywhere, this is the best there is right now."

"It's only a couple of hours away," Dean chimes in, taking another bite of his pancakes. "It won't be a big deal if we're wrong about this."

I scowl and sigh. "Fine. Let's go."

"No need to rush," Dean says through a mouthful of food, seeming intent on not moving for a while. I glare at him and slide out of the booth and start walking out.

"Hey, are you at least gonna pay for your food?"

"I don't have any money," I call over my shoulder unapologetically. Perks of crawling out of hell: someone pays for your food for a while, at least.

I hear him sigh and toss money down on the table before he and Sam follow me out.

—

The town where the hunt is is nice, but we still end up in what has to be the cheapest motel in town. I'm pretty sure there are cockroaches living under the sink of my bathroom.

Still, as a reporter or agent of some type, I have to look presentable, even if the living conditions aren't great, so I tidy up and get dressed up in my skirt suit (a little dusty and stiff from months without use, but at least the two of them kept my stuff around) before meeting the brothers outside our two rooms.

"You guys got my IDs?" I ask them as I shut the door to my room.

"Yeah, we saved them after you—" Sam hesitates. "They're right here," he finishes, passing me the box that has all my fake IDs in it. I smile and flip open the lid. Dozens of little mes stare back.

But they don't look like me. Me from now, anyway. Most of these were made in the past year or two, and while my face is serious, my eyes are smiling. I look calm and relaxed. Definitely not how I'm feeling now. _Especially_ in such close proximity to Sam. I feel edgy and uptight, even more than I did before I met the Winchesters, and I'm sure it shows.

I close the box and look up at the two of them. "What are we going as today? Reporters?"

"FBI," Dean says, as if it should be obvious.

I roll my eyes. "You two haven't changed a bit. Fine, let's go with the more conspicuous option if you want it."

Stop one: abbyotsuka03. Or rather, Abigail Otsuka. Sam tracked down the commenter's IP address and traced it back to a twelve-year-old girl living in a house near the center of the town.

We arrive at her house and go up to the door together and ring on the doorbell. People inside start shouting at each other until finally a young girl opens the door. When she sees us in our suits, she closes the door slightly and hides behind it, peeking out around the edge. "Hello?" she says. "Can I help you?"

Sam, Dean, and I simultaneously flash our FBI badges. "We're with the FBI," Sam says for us. "We're looking for Abigail Otsuka?"

Her eyes widen and she closes the door a little more. "Are you going to arrest me?" she whispers just loudly enough for us to hear.

"We're looking for information on the assault of Jane Davis," Dean adds. "We think you might know something."

"It wasn't me," Abigail says quietly. She looks like she's going to cry.

"Abby! Who is it?" a female voice calls from further in the house.

A woman comes up behind Abigail. "Oh, hello," she says, blinking a couple of times in surprise. "You'll have to excuse me, I was busy preparing dinner. How can I help you?"

"We're with the FBI," Sam says again, the three of us flashing our badges in synchronization for the second time. "We have some questions for your daughter about the assault of Jane Davis."

The woman frowns. "I don't see why she would know anything."

"Please, it's important," I say. "It won't take long."

She seems hesitant but finally invites us in and has us sit down with Abigail in the living room. I sit on the couch and Sam sits down next to me, so I stand up and move to the armchair a few feet away. He doesn't acknowledge my move, but he clenches his jaw.

"Do you need anything? Tea? Food?" Abby's mother asks unsurely.

We all shake our heads and she bites her lip before heading back into the kitchen to work on what she was cooking before.

"So, Abby," Dean starts. "I believe you've spoken with the police already about what you know? Could you tell us what you told them?"

"Oh," she says, frowning. "You won't believe me, though. They didn't believe me and neither did Mom."

"Try us," Sam says. "We believe a lot more than you'd think."

Her eyes widen and she leans forward a little bit like she's about to tell a secret. "It was Kuchisake Onna," she tells us. "My grandmother told me about her."

"The Japanese ghost?" Sam clarifies.

"Yeah."

"Did you see her?" he asks.

"Last week. I was coming home from my friend's house at night and this woman stepped out from behind a tree and she had a scarf wrapped over her nose and mouth so I couldn't see half of her face and she asked me if I thought she was beautiful and I said yes, because I didn't know what else to say, and then she unraveled the scarf and I saw her face and she has those cuts…"

Abigail draws a line with her finger from ear to ear over her mouth to show us and shivers. "And she asked, 'Am I beautiful _now?_' It was so scary. I knew who she was and what she does. If you say yes, then she will cut your mouth the same way her husband did to hers. And if you say no, she will kill you. The only way to get away is to confuse her."

"How do you do that?" I ask.

"You have to say she looks average or so-so. And she will get confused for long enough for you to run away."

Sam and Dean nod thoughtfully. It sounds a little far-fetched to me, but it _is_ a ghost we're dealing with. And ghosts aren't exactly the most reasonable creatures in the world.

"Where did you see her?" Sam asks.

"A couple blocks away," Abigail says. "Near Main Street and, um… Fourth, I think. I was coming back from my friend's house by there."

"Do you have any idea what Kuchisake Onna be doing so far from here, in the middle of Ohio?" Dean adds.

She shrugs. "I don't know."

Sam and Dean glance at each other and Dean nods before turning back to Abby. "Here's our card," he says, pulling out his wallet to hand her a business card. "If you have any more information, don't hesitate to call."

"Okay," she says, taking the card and looking at it as the three of us stand up.

"Thank you for your time," I tell her as we head for the door.

"Yeah." She hops to her feet to walk us to the door and watches as we open the door and head out. She waves from the door as we go to our car.

"Do you still think she's lying?" Dean asks me as I climb into the back of the Impala.

"I don't know. Maybe. She seemed pretty sincere, but maybe she's just good at lying."

"So you want to keep going with this case?"

I frown. "Yeah. I guess so." I am intrigued, I have to admit that, and it'll be good to get my mind off things. There's nothing quite like a hunt for a ghost to help with that.


	12. Chapter 12

After we got back to the motel, we started in on research. We tried to find if there were any other similar unusual occurrences either in this town, or across the country. Eventually Sam found a similar case from Oahu in Hawaii fifteen years ago, and we did a search within a ten-block radius of Main and Fourth to see if there were any families that were in Oahu fifteen years ago.

Sure enough, one name popped up. _Ida._ Two blocks away from where Abigail ran into the ghost.

So, here we are now, five hours after meeting with Abby, sitting in the living room of a second-story apartment across from a family of three. The parents have heavy Japanese accents, so most of the talking is done by their daughter Katsuke, who looks to be about sixteen.

Like Abigail, the family knows of Kuchisake Onna; the parents were kids in Japan during the seventies, when the scare about the ghost was at its peak.

"Do you have anything—an heirloom, maybe—that would have belonged to somebody who died in a similar manner to Kuchisake Onna?" Sam asks calmly.

"Kuchisake Onna is just a _story_," the father says emphatically.

"We're just exploring every angle," Dean throws in.

"My mom's sister disappeared when I was a baby," Katsuke chimes in. "They never found the body, but her boyfriend was convicted for killing her because he found out she was cheating on him. We still have my aunt's necklace, it was all they found at her apartment after she disappeared. Does that help?"

Her parents shoot her a glare.

"Yes, it does help," I say. It does sound similar. I take a deep breath. "If you don't mind, we're going to need to take that necklace from you as evidence."

"I don't understand why you need that as evidence," the mother says indignantly. The necklace is probably all that she has left of her sister, and I understand why she doesn't want us to take it. Unfortunately, we have to.

Dean and I exchange glances. It might make it easier if we just tell them the truth. Or, it might make it harder. They could think we're crazy and kick us out.

I let Sam and Dean make the decision.

"Listen," Sam says, leaning forward and putting his elbows on his knees. "Kuchisake Onna is real. Ghosts are real. Everything that goes bump in the night… It's all real. The three of us, we hunt those things in order to protect people. And right now, Kuchisake Onna, or rather a version of her, is out for revenge. The only way we can stop her is if we destroy that necklace."

The father shakes his head. "You're crazy." Next to him, his wife looks skeptical.

Katsuke, however, nods. "Okay," she says.

"Katsuke!" her mother hisses.

Katsuke replies in Japanese, and her and her parents argue for a minute or so without me, Sam, or Dean able to understand in the least.

Finally, Katsuke looks back at us. "My parents say you can take the necklace," she says solemnly. "What are you going to do with it?" she adds after a moment.

"We need to destroy it," I say. "Which usually means salting and burning."

She pauses and relays the information to her parents. They seem upset but finally they hesitantly agree. "Okay," Katsuke says. She stands up and goes into another room, and returns after about a minute with a locket hanging from her fingers.

"Here you go," she says, passing it to me.

I look at it. It's heart shaped, and when I open it up, it has a picture of a man on one side, a woman on the other. Probably Katsuke's aunt and her boyfriend.

"Would you like us to burn it now?" I ask, nodding towards the fireplace that's across from us.

The mother nods.

Dean stands up and goes to start up the fire.

Sam asks, "Are you sure this is the only thing that's connected to her? There wouldn't be anything else? Or any remains, like hair or fingernail clippings?"

The mother shakes her head. "That's it. That's the only thing I brought with me that was hers."

Dean finishes building up the fire, so Sam holds out a hand for me to pass him the locket. I visibly flinch in surprise, and Sam drops his hand with a pained expression on his face. I take a deep breath and stand up to give the locket to Dean, noting the confused expressions on the family's faces.

"Ready?" Dean asks the family. They all nod, and he tosses the locket into the fire. He pulls some salt packets out from his back pocket and sprinkles those on top.

We're all silent as we watch the locket slowly melt. It takes a while, and after about ten minutes, Katsuke asks, "Is that it?"

"Hopefully, yes it is," Dean tells her.

"It seems kind of… anticlimactic," Katsuke says. "Are you sure you did it right?"

"Yes," Dean replies. "Trust me, we do this for a living."

There's a pause.

"Well, if that's it," I say, "I guess we should get going."

"Yep," Dean says. He pulls out a business card and hands it to Katsuke. "This is our card, if anything comes up and you need to call us."

"Okay," she says, looking at the card. She glances up at us and gives us a doubtful smile. "FBI, huh?" she asks.

I cough and straighten the bottom of my jacket. "Yes. FBI."

"I guess we'll see you around," Sam says, standing up and moving past me towards the door. The Ida family stands up and gathers near the door to see us out.

"Thank you," I tell them sincerely. "I know it's hard to give up something like that, but you've helped us immensely."

"No problem," the mother says, but I can tell by the strained tone of voice that it definitely is a problem.

Sam opens the door and the three of us file out. I close the door behind us.

"So that was it?" I ask as we start walking down the stairs to the street.

"I guess so," Dean says.

But it doesn't help make me any less worried.


	13. Chapter 13

I convince Sam and Dean to stay another day or two, just to make sure everything's alright before we move on, and they hesitantly agree.

It's two in the morning the night after we burned the locket, and I'm fast asleep, when my phone starts ringing obnoxiously. I roll over groggily and pick it up off the nightstand.

I clear my throat and try to make myself sound alert, though it's impossible to keep all the sleepiness out of my voice. "Hello?"

"Eva?" the other end of the line says. "It's Katsuke." Right. I recognize that voice. She just sounds more… panicked, than she did before. "I was coming home from a party and I… I saw that ghost. Kuchisake Onna." I bolt upright in bed. "She took off her mask and she didn't look anything like my aunt, I've seen pictures, it wasn't her. I… I… I thought we got rid of her!"

Fuck. I knew it. We didn't get rid of her. It was just too easy.

"But you're okay now, aren't you?" I ask urgently.

"Yeah… I got away. I'm okay. Just shaken up. You can stop her for real, though, right?" she asks breathlessly.

"Uh…" I clear my throat and continue confidently. "Yeah. Yeah, we might have made a mistake but we can figure it out soon. Don't worry. I'll talk to you later, okay? Call me if anything else comes up."

"Okay," she says, her voice shaking.

"Okay, great, bye," I say, hanging up.

I slide out of bed and put on some jeans and a jacket and go out into the hallway to knock on the door right next to mine. There's no response, so I knock a little louder.

After a few moments, the door opens, and Sam's standing right there, looking tired and groggy. And… tall. I back up a few steps and he sighs tiredly as he opens the door wider and goes back into the room to give me room to enter.

Dean's sitting up in bed, still half-covered by his blankets. "Whassup?" he asks sleepily, rubbing his eyes.

I yawn and plop down in one of the chairs at the table. "I just got a call from Katsuke. Kuchisake Onna is still around, and it's definitely not Katsuke's aunt."

"What?" Sam asks. "I thought…"

"I guess we were wrong," I say with a shrug.

We all sit there silently, getting our sluggish brains to try to come up with some other solution.

"What if I go out as bait and we see if we can get her to show up, maybe find a lead that way?" I say after a while.

"Absolutely not," Sam says before I've even finished my sentence.

I glare at him. "You don't trust me?"

"You just got back from hell, you're not exactly on the top of your game," he says.

I frown. "Fine. You be the fucking bait, I don't care." I really don't.

"Okay," he says, crossing his arms.

"Let's go, then. See what we can find."

Dean sighs audibly as he climbs out his bed and slides into a pair of jeans that's sitting on the end of his bed. "This is a stupid idea, but I can't think of anything better and I'm not letting either of you drive my car."

We park in the parking lot of an old antique store and Sam gets out of the back seat as Dean and I stay in our seats in the front.

"Good luck," Dean says. "Stay in view of the car so we can come help if we see anything."

"Of course," Sam says, slamming the door shut behind him and wandering off down the empty street, lit only by the occasional street lamp and flickering neon sign.

We watch Sam as he leans against a wall across the street and pulls out his phone.

"Coffee?" Dean asks, offering me a thermos of black coffee.

"God. Yes, please," I say, taking the thermos from him and glugging it down. Back before I started hunting, I was more of a pumpkin-spice-latte type of girl, but when I was forced to get used to long nights, I came to accept any form of coffee, even in its bitterest form.

After about twenty minutes of watching Sam pace back and forth across the street, Dean's phone buzzes. "Sam says, _'This isn't working,'_" he reads.

I'm leaning my head against the window, staring idly at the empty parking lot we're in, when I see a misty whiteness start to float through the door of the antique shop.

"Dean," I say, smacking his arm and pointing at the mist. It's floating in Sam's direction, starting to form the outline of a human shape.

Dean shoots off a text to Sam and a second later Sam looks up at the solidifying human shape a few feet away from him and leaps away from the wall he's leaning against into a fighting stance. He grabs the iron crowbar that was leaning against the wall behind him and holds it up in front of him.

Now he's facing off against the ghost. She's dressed completely in white, almost like hospital garb, with long flowing black hair all the way down her back. Dean and I get out of the car as quietly as we can, Dean equipped with a salt shotgun and me with an iron crowbar and a small duffel with salt and lighter fluid in it.

Sam's saying something to the ghost now, but we can't hear it, nor can we see if she's talking.

"She came from in there," I whisper to Dean, nodding at the antiques shop. "She's probably tied to something in the shop. I'll go see if I can find it."

He nods. "I need to help Sam, then we'll meet up with you."

"Okay."

There's a screeching sound from across the street and I look over to see Sam swinging his crowbar through the shape of the ghost. She disappears in a swirl of particles.

I need to hurry up before she gets back.

The front entrance is probably impossible to get into… I hurry around the side to look for another door and find one. Perfect. I pull my lock picking supplies out of my back pocket and open the door in about thirty seconds, and by the time I'm finished, Sam and Dean are already standing behind me, huffing breathlessly from running.

I push open the door slowly. Nobody's here. We're good.

But there's so much crap here. How are we ever going to find whatever object she's tied to?

We start looking through everything quickly, skimming over the tables of ancient-looking objects, searching for anything that looks like it's from Japan.

Suddenly a form appears behind me and I spin around. It's her, holding an enormous, sharp pair of scissors, and a ghastly grin spread across her face.

"Holy fuck," I almost shout, completely startled, stumbling back into a table of antiques. I put my hand back to steady myself and it collides with something sharp. I feel it cutting into my palm and blood starting to swell up, but I ignore the pain, too shocked by the image in front of me.

"Hey!" Sam shouts from across the room, waving at her. "Ugly! Over here!"

The ghost spins around starts advancing towards him.

With the attention off me, I look behind me at the sharp thing I put my hand on. An unsheathed knife, with a similar base and shape to a samurai sword, just shorter. I frantically look at the tag on it.

_Tanto - Japanese dagger._

_Japan, 1860._

_$600.00_

This has to be it.

"Dean!" I hiss, waving the dagger in the air.

"Hurry!" he mouths.

I edge around Kuchisake Onna, who still has her attention on Sam, and out the door so I can salt and burn the damn thing.

I'm almost out the door when Kuchisake Onna swings her scissors at Sam's neck. He dodges out of the way, just enough to miss it, but one of the blades still catches him across the cheek and there's a splash of blood as he cries out in pain.

"Sam!" I shout, and Kuchisake Onna looks back at me. She sees the tanto in my hand and starts rapidly floating towards me.

She goes up in a swirl of mist and I see Sam standing behind her, holding his iron crowbar and breathing heavily. There's already blood covering his entire cheek. That's definitely gonna need stitches.

"Go!" Sam says urgently.

Without saying another word, I step out into the alleyway and drop the dagger on the ground, pour lighter fluid all over it, and drop a lit match on it. The small patch on the ground where the lighter fluid is goes up in flames, and the cloth at the base of the dagger starts curling as it burns.

Kuchisake Onna appears in front of me, back again, holding up her scissors, about to strike—

I shake my head. "It's over," I say tiredly.

She goes up in flames with a screech.

I laugh in relief. "Thank god," I say.

"Yeah," Dean says, throwing an arm over my shoulder. I flinch, still wary from my days in hell, but only for a second. Sam knows better than to try anything like that. He's still standing a few feet away.

We're silent for a few seconds and can hear the blaring of police sirens in the distance.

Dean drops his arm from my shoulder. "Aaaand that's our cue to get going," he says. "Looks like somebody called the cops."

Twenty seconds later, we're driving down the road, straight past the flashing lights of the cop cars. They don't know this car belongs to us yet, so we're safe for now.

But we're gonna have to get out of town as soon as we can.

* * *

We stop by the motel and pick up our stuff, and then we're on the road by four in the morning.

"Where to now?" Dean asks, one hand on the wheel as he turns on the radio.

"Actually, you can drop me at the bus stop," I say from the back seat.

He and Sam look back at me incredulously.

I scowl. "I'm serious. I want to travel alone."

There's a pause, and then Sam says, "Do you really hate me that much?"

"I don't _hate_ you," I say immediately. "I don't. But it's just fucking exhausting to be around you, you know? I always have to be on guard and I don't _mean_ to be, it just happens, and I can't sleep right, I can't relax, and… The demon—Meg—said that I had to tell you what she told me. That's it. I can be on my own now."

"Eva, you don't have to do this," Dean says.

"Yes, I do. You don't know—" My voice cracks. "You don't know what it's like. I can't be with you guys."

Sam clenches his jaw and looks out the window.

"So you'll let me go?" I ask tentatively, even though there's no way I'd let them get away with saying no.

There's a short silence. "Yes," Dean finally says. "I'm not saying it's the right thing, but yes."

We pull over to the Greyhound bus stop fifteen minutes later. Dean grabs my duffel filled with weapons and clothes, and presses five hundred bucks into my hands.

"Just something to keep you going for a bit," he says, before giving me a hug.

"Thanks, Dean," I say, tolerating the hug.

He steps back and I turn to Sam, who's standing there uncomfortably, hands in his pockets. "Sam," I say.

"Eva."

"I'll miss you," I say, wrapping my arms around him in a hug as well. I'm not sure if it's entirely true. It will be nice to get away from such a source of stress, but he and Dean are all I've had for so long now - they're all I have.

Sam tenses up in surprise. It's not like he could've expected it, I wasn't planning on giving him a hug until a second before I did, and even now it doesn't feel right, like the pain is going to start in any second because he's at too close of a proximity.

"Yeah," he says after a moment. He doesn't hug me back, just pushes me away awkwardly. He won't look at me, eyes focused instead on the ground next to the Impala. He's scowling and he looks pretty bitter. I know I've been a little hostile to him since I came back but it's not quite the reaction I was expecting. I brush it off and step away from him.

"I'll see you guys later, okay?" I say turning around and walking backwards for a few steps with a short wave. They wave back but don't smile.

Then I turn around, and don't look back.


	14. Chapter 14

It's been four months since I've seen Sam or Dean, or even talked to them. I'm back to living how I was before, alone and moving around in a cheap car that was made before I was born.

It's nice like this. Efficient. No one to get attached to. And nothing is messy like it is around the Winchesters. The stuff they get tied up in… It's like trouble goes out of its way to find them.

Though I've been working non-stop to help keep my mind off everything—off _them—_my last hunt, a kitsune, managed to cut my side pretty deep with its claws and so I'm incapacitated while I recover. I had to stop hunting for at least a week while it healed up, so I broke into a house in Washington that belongs to a family that's out of town on vacation.

Right now, I'm curled up by the crackling fireplace as it rains outside, idly flipping through news articles on my phone. Dean's phone, actually. He gave it to me when I first got back from hell because he had a few of them and I had none. Though it's mostly personalized by now, there's a few things I haven't had the willpower to delete. The photos, for instance.

I haven't even looked at them.

But I'm feeling safe right now, nice and cozy in a warm home, and the safety reminds me of my time with the Winchesters. I'm hit with a pang of nostalgia, so I close the news app and open up the photos.

There's a few gory pictures that were taken for evidence here and there scattered among the other pictures, but for the most part, they're just pictures of me, Sam, and Dean.

I'm sure I took most of them, or got Sam or Dean to do it for me. Sam and Dean have never really had a thing for recording memories, but my selfie habit from before I started hunting sparked up again when I was with the two of them and now this phone has at least five hundred pictures of us.

I start flipping through them. Me making a duck face. The three of us in front of the world's largest ball of twine, which we'd visited three times by that point. Me again, posing with a dead body (why did I even take that picture again?). Me wearing Sam's coat, which makes me look tiny in comparison, while Sam rests his arm on top of my head with a huge grin on his face. Sam kissing my cheek at a diner. I smile at the memories. We took that picture the first time I had visited South Dakota. And the one before that was taken on my birthday.

I keep flipping. Sam smiling. Sam talking. Sam. Sam. Sam. I really took a lot of pictures of him, didn't I?

Suddenly I'm glad I have this phone, that I have something to remind me of how things were before I'd had my life and relationship with Sam ruined by hell. How could I have forgotten what he meant to me?

I feel a jab of loneliness. I'd been getting on so well before by myself. And now I just had to be reminded of what I'd had. Though I'd never admit it, I need Sam, and Dean as well. They're my family.

I hold back tears and take a deep breath. Could I really go back now, though? Even if they forgave me, could I handle the on-edge feeling I constantly had when I was around Sam?

I shake my head. Better not. I'm sure they've moved on anyway.

I hit the _Select All_ button in the photo app and press _Delete._ There. Nothing to remind me of them anymore. Now I can focus on my work.

Trying to push the thought of the Winchesters from my mind, I go back to the news app, browsing the state news for anything I could go after in a couple days, after my wounds have healed up.

_Woman sues restaurant for food poisoning._ Nope.

_Governor introduces new bill that would legalize marijuana._ Nope.

_Library to increase late fees._ Nope.

_New parents found brutally murdered, child missing._ Well, brutal murder is a place to start.

I open the article.

_Ella and John Lewis were found dead Saturday morning in their home in Redmond, Washington. Their newborn baby girl, who had been born two weeks premature just several days before, was nowhere to be found and is presumed missing. There are currently no leads on who is responsible for the murders and kidnapping of the child._

Hm. Ella and John Lewis. I look them up in the search bar, to see if they've made any other news, or if they have any enemies.

Only one other article pops up, from seven months ago: _Miracle baby conceived._

Okay, not really what I was expecting, but it's a start.

_31-year-old Ella Lewis, diagnosed infertile due to premature menopause two years ago, was ecstatic to find out last week that she and her husband John are expecting a child._

_"I had given up on any hope of becoming pregnant, but I started to show some signs associated with early pregnancy," said Ella. "I wasn't expecting much with the pregnancy test, but it turned up positive and a visit to the doctor confirmed it!"_

Yeah, that's definitely unusual.

I'm reminded of the baby I could have had, if Crowley hadn't taken it away. I wonder where I would be now, if I hadn't gone to hell, if I'd carried it to term. Would I still be with Sam? Would I be as excited to have a kid as the couple in this story were?

Then something hits me.

I found out I was pregnant nearly nine months ago. This baby was born a few days ago. This woman wanted a baby but couldn't have one. And what had Crowley said? _There's a nice couple who have been trying unsuccessfully to conceive and who are going to be receiving a pleasant surprise._

And now the baby is missing, the parents killed - somebody must have wanted her. Knowing Sam and Dean's lineage, it does seem likely that somebody could have set their sights on the child of a Winchester.

This couldn't be connected, could it? That baby, my baby, could have gone anywhere. And this one might just have been something unusual, nothing more…

But there's still a gut feeling that this is linked to me.

Taking a deep breath, I dial Sam's number and wait.

It takes a few moments before the phone is picked up. "Hello, this is Agent Donovan from the FBI," the voice on the other end says. Sam. It's almost relieving to hear his voice again. I was right all those months ago when I said goodbye - I _do_ miss him.

"Sam, it's Eva," I say bluntly.

"Eva?" he says, his voice gone from cool and collected to shocked in a matter of moments.

"Yeah. We need to talk."


	15. Chapter 15

Well, this is it. The motel Sam and Dean are staying at. This will be the first time I've seen them in months.

The drive across the country, three days long, gave me plenty of time to think. The pictures from the phone, though deleted, kept poking at the back of my mind. It only took that amount of time to realize I care about Sam and Dean more than I would like, and that it's just going to do more harm than good trying to cut them out of my life.

Bracing myself, I open the door and climb out of my car. I glance at my phone again. _Room 143,_ the text from Dean says. I start walking in the room's direction.

I pass the Impala on the way. I rub a hand along its hood lovingly. I really did miss it, the steady hum as it drove along back country roads, the soft music playing just loud enough to hear, sleeping with my head on Sam's shoulder…

Suddenly the back door opens and a sleepy Dean slides out.

"Dean?" I ask in surprise.

"Hey," he says sleepily, yawning and stretching his arms. Once he finishes, he walks over to stand in front of me, not quite sure what to do.

Ah, fuck it. I throw my arms around him and hug him tightly. I did miss him. A lot.

"You were right," I mutter into Dean's jacket.

"I usually am," he says, and I pull back from the hug to give him a playful punch to the gut.

"I mean, you were right about being with people you care about. I was starting to feel… lost, I guess." I run a hand through my hair. "Without you and Sam."

"So you missed us," he states.

"I'm not saying that," I scoff. "I'm just saying that it's better to be backed up by people I know."

"Uh-huh. I'm sure that's all," he says, throwing an arm over my shoulder as we start walking towards the motel room.

"Why were you sleeping in the car?" I ask.

"Oh, Sam texted me and told me not to come back to the motel room at about one in the morning last night. It's brother code, gotta stick to it."

"So that means…?" I know exactly what it means.

"Yeah." He casts me a sideways glance as if to check I'm all right.

We reach Room 143 and Dean knocks on the door. There's about a ten second wait before the door cracks open and Sam is standing there in nothing but his jeans.

I feel a little bit of fear, just enough to make my heart beat a little faster, but not the huge rush of panic I'd felt when I was with them before, so that's good. I guess my time away must have let my memories of hell fade enough for me to stop associating Sam with it. Instead, I'm surprised to realize I feel excited and happy to see him again.

"Sorry," he says. "One minute."

He closes the door again and I feel a prickle of jealousy replacing the warm feeling I was having a moment before. We wait a little longer and then the door opens again and a girl a couple years younger than me, dressed in a short skirt and high heels, walks out past us. She looks a little uncomfortable by my and Dean's presence. Her lips are red and swollen and she has a hickey on her neck, so it's not exactly hard to guess what she and Sam have been up to. She gives Sam one last quick glance and a smile before continuing on her way towards the main office of the motel.

I clear my throat uncomfortably, feeling a little bit hurt. He knew I was coming, couldn't he have tried to be a little more sensitive?

"What's up?" Sam asks, talking to Dean. He still hasn't looked my way yet.

"Eva's here," Dean says, frowning at his brother disapprovingly.

"Oh yeah," he says, glancing at me for a fraction of a second.

"Aren't you at least going to say hi?" I ask after an uncomfortable pause.

"Are you going to attack me with a knife again?" he counters, finally turning to me with a disapproving frown.

Tears prick at my eyes and I turn away so he won't see. Okay, that was kind of fair, but it doesn't make it hurt any less.

"Come on, Sammy, we haven't seen her in four months," Dean says. "Don't be an asshole."

"_I'm_ the asshole? She said she hated me," Sam says, his voice wavering. "You told me that much."

"God dammit, Dean," I mutter.

"Like it was a secret?" Sam asks me angrily. I don't shrink back like I would've four months ago, and he stands a little taller, like my lack of fear has given him permission to be intimidating again. "You made it clear I'm the entire reason you left, so I don't even _know_ why you would come back now."

I bite my lip at his harsh words. I wasn't expecting him to be this angry. Dean shifts uncomfortably at the tension between us, and Sam just crosses his arms and watches me carefully.

"Why did you come back, Eva?" he asks tiredly.

I sigh. "It's complicated."

"You're not back for me or Dean, then," he concludes.

"I never said that," I growl.

"You didn't have to."

"Okay," Dean interrupts awkwardly. "Let's just go in and talk about why Eva _is_ here." He pushes me and Sam into the room and closes the door.

There's a charged silence, so Dean goes to the mini-fridge and gets three beers.

"Here," he says, passing them to us.

I set mine on the windowsill and Sam sets his on the table behind him, completely uninterested in drinking at the moment.

"Suit yourselves," Dean says with a shrug, cracking open his bottle and taking a glug.

"So what's the 'complicated' reason you're here?" Sam asks.

I take a deep breath. "I found some stuff about the baby."

"The baby," Sam says blankly. Dean looks just as unaware of what I'm talking about.

"My baby," I say to clarify. "The baby that you and I conceived together."

Sam's expression goes from guarded and tense to shocked. "What?" he asks. "How?"

"Here," I say, going over to the computer on the table and opening it up. I open a new browser tab and type in the name of the article I'd seen, the first one announcing the miracle pregnancy.

"Read this. From seven months ago," I say, turning the screen towards Sam and Dean.

They lean in to read it. "I don't see how this is necessarily… your baby," Sam says after he finishes.

"Yeah, that was the first part," I say, pulling up the second article from a few days before. "Now read this."

"Okay, this does seem unusual," Dean admits as he's skimming through it.

"It's a girl," Sam says softly, more to himself than us. He smiles.

Dean glances at him with raised eyebrows. "Um, yeah."

I try not to grin over Sam's awe of finding out the gender of our baby as I ask, "Any reason somebody would want the child of a Winchester? I mean, your family line… Vessels for Michael and Lucifer, descendants of Cain and Abel, Men of Letters…"

Dean shrugs. "Any and all of the reasons? I don't know."

"How do we find out who took her? And why?" I ask.

"Uh," Sam says, idly scratching the back of his head. "Tracking spell?"

"A tracking spell? We don't have anything of hers," I say.

"We have her two parents," Dean says slyly.

"Huh," I say, nodding. I shut the computer. "Well, that's a start."


	16. Chapter 16

We spend the rest of the day and most of the next morning researching a spell that will work for us. Finally we find one, and we set up a map on the table and stand around it.

"So what do we do first?" I ask Dean.

"Each of you needs to put a little bit of blood on our current location," he says, pointing to a spot on the map that he's marked with an X.

"Okay," I say. I pick up one of Dean's small knifes and make a quick cut on the side of my palm. I hold it over the X-marked spot on the map and let a few drops fall onto it. Sam does the same, and then Dean starts reciting the spell.

About halfway into the spell, something starts happening. The messy drops of blood slowly pull together as if to a magnet and then a thin stream of blood starts running along one of the lines on the map.

Dean glances up and then keeps reading, and blood keeps snaking along until Dean finishes the spell and it stops at a town in Kansas, where the blood then soaks into the map.

"Great," Dean says. "Only fifteen hours from here."

"Awesome. I'll take my car, you take yours, and I'll meet you there?" I say.

"Sounds good," Dean replies. Sam's still not saying anything.

We pack up and head out to our cars. I try to turn mine on but it just revs and then sputters out. "Shit," I mumble to myself as I climb out of the car. "Dean!" I shout to Dean, who's twenty feet away and just about to get in the Impala.

"What?" he shouts back.

"My car isn't working!"

He says something to Sam and then comes over. "What's wrong with it?" he asks.

"Won't turn on," I tell him.

He tries turning it on himself, opens the hood, checks a few things out before turning to me. "It just seems old," he says with a shrug. "This thing's gone so far, it can't go anymore."

"So… what does that mean?"

"It means there's no way you're driving it."

"Shit," I grumble, half-heartedly kicking the front tire. "I gotta ride with you guys?"

"If you wanna come with us to stop that demon," he tells me, but his furrowed brow indicates he's more concerned than his tone is letting on. Fifteen hours in a car with Sam? That's going to be tough for everyone involved. I look up at the Impala, where Sam is leaning against the hood of the car watching us, arms crossed.

"Fine," I finally growl. "I'll get my stuff."

And so it is, fifteen minutes later, we're cruising down the road with Sam and Dean in front, me in back.

"So what've you been up to while you've been gone?" Dean asks me.

"The usual. Hunting. Killing things. Hey, Sam, if I'm going to be the one talking to Dean anyway, can I just sit in the front?" I ask Sam, who's stubbornly ignoring the world and reading a book.

"No," he says flatly, flipping the page in his book and otherwise continuing to ignore us.

I let out a huff and flop back into my seat. "Okay, then."

The remainder of the fifteen hours pass incredibly slowly. I don't really have anything to do and Sam's being painfully quiet and it's hard to talk to Dean too much over the hum of the road underneath the tires, especially when he's up front and I'm stuck in the back seat.

About twenty minutes away from the town, Dean heads off the highway and into a residential area.

"Where are we going?" I ask him, leaning forward between the seats. Sam scoots a little to the side, away from me, and continues to pretend to ignore us, but I can tell he's listening. I wonder when he's going to cut the act.

"Just an idea I had as we were passing by," Dean says. "I don't even know if she still lives here. It's been a while since we've seen her."

"Her? Who's _her?_" I ask.

"An old friend," Dean tells me, and Sam glances over at him and narrows his eyes. I'm not sure he knows who Dean is talking about either.

I huff and lean back again, pulling up a map application on my phone because he didn't answer my question about where we're going.

Ah. We're in Lawrence, Kansas. The boys' hometown.

Dean pulls up in front of a house and turns off the car. He gets out and Sam and I follow him as he goes up to the front porch.

The door opens before we get the opportunity to knock, and a stout woman greets us with a smile. "Sam, Dean! It's been a while," she says, with a hint of a southern accent. She turns to me. "And your friend Eva, I see."

I look at Sam and Dean. "Did you tell her…?"

They both shake their heads.

When I turn back to the woman, she's holding out her hand for me to shake. I take it and shake it unsurely.

"I'm Missouri. An old friend of John's," she says, without giving context as to who John is. I mean, I know who she's talking about, but I don't know how she knows I know. "And I helped out the boys with a poltergeist back when they started hunting on their own."

"Are you… a hunter?" I ask. She doesn't look like one, but you never know.

"She's a psychic," Dean fills in for me.

"Which explains…" I start.

But she finishes for me. "Why I know your name, and that you know who John is. And, that you're searching for something that you don't know how to find."

There's a pause. "We know the town she's in, but that's it. You can help us find her?" Dean asks after a moment.

Missouri tilts her head. "Why don't you come in." She opens the door some more and we all file into her house.

She ushers us into the living room and seats us all on a couch before going to make some tea.

"Are you sure we can trust her?" I ask Sam and Dean.

"Yes," Dean says definitively.

"Okay," I say, not entirely sure about it, but I'll take his word. I trust him, but it's hard to trust someone that apparently can read everyone's minds like an open book while keeping their own thoughts completely private.

Missouri comes back with a tea pot and some cups on a tray and sets it down on the coffee table. She gives me a knowing and reassuring smile, like she knows exactly what I was thinking about not being able to trust her, and I shift uncomfortably.

"Do you know how to find her?" Dean asks her as she starts pouring tea.

"Maybe if I go with you to the town you located," Missouri says. She passes me a cup of tea and starts filling another one. "If I'm close enough, I might be able to sense where she is."

Dean stands up. "All right, sounds good. Let's go," he says.

"Sit back down, boy," Missouri says firmly. He sits back down. "We're not going anywhere until I finish my tea."

* * *

Missouri accompanies us to the town where we know the baby to be, but says she has to head back to Lawrence as soon as we know where to go. She has appointments with clients later today, and there's not much she can do beyond sending us in the right direction anyway.

She drives her own car down, and Sam goes with her. Obviously he wants to be around me as little as possible. At least I get to sit in the front seat of the Impala.

When we get there, Missouri and Sam get into the Impala so we can drive around the town hoping Missouri can pick something up. Probably pretty inefficient, but it's the best we can do right now.

We've been cruising around the suburbs with the neat houses and well-trimmed lawns for about half an hour when Missouri says, "Stop."

Dean pulls over to the side of the road.

"That's it," she says, nodding to the house across the street. "Seems inconspicuous enough, but there's demons in every adjacent house and spells all over the place."

I can't help but be a little impressed, but I'm uneasy at the same time. How can she tell?

Dean nods, and I can almost see the gears starting to shift in his head. "We'd have to draw the demons out first to be able to get inside." He taps his chin thoughtfully. "They don't know Eva's alive. Me and Sam could use ourselves as bait to lure them out, and Eva could go in. Is Bela there?"

Missouri nods.

"We'll just have to come up with something believable and tempting enough for her to leave too," Sam adds, finally stepping into conversation. We all exchange glances.

"I have an idea," I say.

* * *

And so it comes to be, two hours later, that I'm sitting a block away in my car with a pair of binoculars and Sam and Dean have gotten themselves captured by a demon somewhere in town.

"Good luck," Missouri had said with a smile after we finished coming up with a plan. "And Sam? Stop being so childish and move on," she adds, before taking off.

Anyway, I'm all on my own on this one.

I watch the house where Bela is supposed to be carefully. After a while, Bela and four of her henchmen rush out the front door and get in the car parked in front of the house and drive off. I wait until the car is out of view before climbing out of my own and hurrying towards the house.

I use my lock pick set to open the back door and slip inside, pocketing the lock picks and taking out the demon blade at the same time. I stand completely still and completely silent for a few moments to try to pick up any noises of human—or rather, demon—life inside.

"Bela forbade me from eating you," I can barely hear a voice from upstairs say in a cooing voice. That must be where the kid is. "Which is too bad. You look tasty."

I tighten my grip on the demon blade in my hand, disgusted. I'd almost forgotten how nasty demons are. I take a few steps towards the stairs when somebody says from behind me, "Nice try."

I turn around and look at the man standing in front of me. He's tall and imposing, dressed in a simple suit and tie, but his eyes aren't completely black. Yet, at least.

I try to play it cool. I have the demon blade with me just in case this doesn't work out. "Who are you?"

He smiles, his eyes glowing blue for a second. I stumble backwards in surprise. An angel? I'm fucked. I don't have an angel blade - I haven't even seen one in months. Because we haven't been dealing with angels.

"Uh, let's not do anything we'll regret, now," I say in a strained voice. "We can just talk it out."

He smiles and pulls out an angel blade, spinning it in his hand as he stalks towards me.

Fuck. What do I do now? Angel-banishing sigil. I can do that. I cut across my forearm, pressing hard and cringing at the pain. I hope it'll be enough blood.

"I don't think so," the angel says, grabbing my bleeding arm with his free hand. The skin burns where he touches and I cry out.

I'm not ready to die. Panicked, I stab at his chest with my demon knife. As expected, nothing happens. He laughs, but his laugh is cut short as his face goes blank and a blade protrudes from his chest. I glance over his shoulder and there's someone standing there, pulling the blade out of the angel as the angel drops to the ground. The man's face is impossible to see, completely lit up and his features drowned out from the bright light already starting to fill the room.

"Cover your eyes," the man behind the angel growls. The angel has light pouring from his eyes and mouth and a high-pitched noise is filling the air. I close my eyes and cover my ears, but it barely blocks out the sound, which feels like it's reverberating painfully through my head.

After what must be ten seconds, the noise subsides and I open my eyes and straighten up.

The man's standing there in front of me, the dead angel at his feet and a bundled-up baby in his arms.

And I recognize him.

"Cas?"


	17. Chapter 17

Am I seeing things? Is this really Cas?

Cas puts his hand on my shoulder and in a split second we're standing somewhere else—back at the parking lot outside of our motel.

Sam and Dean are standing there, leaning against the Impala, Dean with a phone up to his ear. Looks like they got away from their demon captor okay, aside from a few scratches.

When they see us, they straighten up and their eyes widen.

Dean slowly brings the phone down from his ear and takes a tentative few steps forward.

"Cas?" he asks, rubbing his eyes as if to make sure the angel is actually standing in front of him.

Cas hands me the baby and walks towards Dean, stopping when he's about a foot away.

"I thought you were dead," Dean says, his shock evident in his voice.

Cas stands silently for a moment before saying, "I was. But I was suddenly back on earth a month ago." He glances up at the sky. "God must have found another reason to keep me alive."

Dean stands there another moment before pulling Cas into a hug. "I'm glad you're back, man."

Cas stands there for a moment, arms at his side, before he hugs Dean back.

Sam walks past Cas and Dean and over to me.

"So you got the baby?" he asks softly, trying not to interrupt Cas and Dean.

"I, um, I hope this is it," I say, holding up the baby slightly. She's bundled up in a blue blanket and watching the world sleepily. "I didn't actually go and get her, Cas did."

"Do you mind?" Sam asks, holding out his arms. I pass the baby to him. He smiles down at her, and she coos as she looks up at him.

"We should get going," I announce, so Cas and Dean can hear too. "The demons are probably searching the whole town for us."

Dean snaps out of his shock. "Yeah, let's go. I already packed up."

We all climb in the car, giving Cas the front seat. Looks like he's going to stick around, rather than flying off to wherever he goes when he's not with us.

I'm in the back seat with Sam and the baby, who's fallen asleep.

"Where are we going?" Dean asks as we start driving down the road.

There's a few moments of silence before Sam suggests, "Bobby's? Somewhere safe to get us back on our feet and find what to do next."

Dean nods. "Sounds good to me.

"So fill us in," Dean says to me and Cas. "What happened?"

I tell him about the brief time I was in the house, finishing with, "And then Cas showed up. Cas, do you know who that angel was, what he was doing working with Bela? I thought the angels were the good guys most of the time."

"I've been watching Bela and her demons for a while. I think he was the a fallen angel Asbeel."

"Fallen angel? Like Lucifer?" I ask.

"Yes," Cas says.

"What are they trying to do?" Dean asks.

Cas pauses. "I think they're trying to release Lucifer from his cage."

I sigh. "Goddammit. Haven't you guys been through this before?"

"Why? How do you know?" Dean asks Cas.

"Like I said, I've been watching them. I'm not sure how this will benefit her, but she seems determined. They appear to be using a book titled _Reserans caveum._"

Sam's eyes narrow at hearing the title of the book.

"Uh, something about a cave?" I ask cluelessly.

"No," Sam says bluntly.

"'_Unlocking the cage_,'" Dean translates for me instead. "Getting rusty on your Latin?"

"Yeah, I wasn't exactly raised speaking it like you two," I grumble bitterly.

"There is only one copy of the book, but I spoke to a theology professor who is familiar with it. Or… was. Bela killed him. It's a more detailed account of the seals that keep Lucifer's cage closed. If another sixty-six are broken…"

"Then the cage opens again," Dean says.

"But… The first and last seals have already been broken," Sam says. "Lilith is dead. It can't be repeated."

"There is another final seal," Cas tells us. "A sacrifice of the child of Lucifer's true vessel."

Huh. Convenient for Bela that a child of Lucifer's true vessel so recently came into being, then.

"So…" Sam looks down at the baby in my arms. "This baby."

"I believe that is what they were saving her for," Cas confirms.

"Well, I think that's good news," I say, holding the baby a little closer to myself. "At least we can't be tricked into breaking the final seal, like, uh…" I glance at Sam and he turns away to look out the window. It's a sensitive topic for him, understandably. "And as long as we can keep her safe, we can keep the cage shut."

"Bela has broken fifteen seals so far," Cas tells us.

There's silence for a few moments.

"What? Almost a fourth of them have been broken _already?_" I ask. Sam and Dean look as surprised as I feel.

"I have confidence in your ability to stop Bela," Cas tells us, and then he's gone, his seat left empty.

"What?" I say again after a moment, to no one in particular. Dean looks a little deflated and disappointed, and he keeps looking over at the seat where Cas had been sitting like he's expecting the angel to come back.

But he doesn't return, so we're left to sort out the information he gave us on our own. It's a five hour drive to Bobby's, so we'll have a while.

We stop to get childcare supplies on the way - the baby was screaming her head off which gave us the impression she needed something - and Dean is mostly the one figuring out how to take care of her. He has some babysitting experience after a year as a suburban dad a couple of years ago, which is more than Sam and I can say.

"Do you think Bobby will take care of her?" I ask. It's my turn to drive now, so Dean's sitting in the front seat next to me with the baby and Sam's in the back. "We need to do something with this kid. No way we're taking care of her doing what we do."

"Why not?" Dean asks. "Dad did that with us."

"And the two of you turned out so great," I say sarcastically.

He shoots me an irritated glance and I just smile back at him.

"We'll figure it out when we get there," Sam says tiredly. I look in the rearview mirror to see his face, but he just looks worn out and it's hard to tell his opinion on the matter.

We spend most of the rest of the car ride in silence, except for the occasional request to turn the radio on or off or change the station or turn up the heat or air conditioning, and we only stop once for gas and another time for Dean to change the baby's diaper on the hood of the Impala.

"You're gonna have to learn to do this yourselves at some point," he complained to us as we sat inside the car, me on my phone, Sam with a book, both of us ignoring him. "Ol' Uncle Dean isn't always gonna be around to clean up your child's poop."

We reach Bobby's house by the time it gets dark.

He must see the Impala pull up in front of his house because he's already out on the porch by the time we get out of the car.

"Boys," he says, nodding at them. "Eva." He squints at the bundled up baby in my arms, finally sleeping peacefully. "And is that…?"

I clear my throat awkwardly. I don't think he's been filled in on the whole baby situation yet. "This is our baby. Mine and Sam's, I mean."

"What?" Bobby says, dumbfounded. "Weren't you in hell just a few months ago?"

I sigh. "It's complicated."

There's a beat of silence before Bobby says, "Well, you'd best come in, then."


	18. Chapter 18

A few minutes later, we're all situated around the kitchen table with beers, and Bobby's holding the baby and smiling down at her. Despite being such a gruff-looking guy, he's such a softie. I wonder why he never had kids of his own.

"You'd better start talkin'," he says, glancing up at us. "Last thing I heard, Eva went off on her own 'cause she couldn't stand Sam after hell and you hadn't heard from her since."

I clear my throat and start explaining everything that happened, Dean occasionally jumping in to add a detail or two. The story that I stumbled across while looking for a hunt. Calling Sam and meeting up with him and Dean again. Using a tracking spell to find the baby, and then locating the house where she was, saving her and then getting out of town. Cas coming back and telling us about the seals being broken again.

Up to where we are now, sitting around the table and drinking beer.

"It seems like you have quite a problem on your hands. So where do I come into all this?" Bobby asks us.

"Um," I say. "Well, we were hoping you could take care of the kid."

"_What?"_ he says incredulously. "You think you can just prance in here and drop off a child and I'll take care of it for you?"

As if on cue, the baby starts crying again.

"Bobby, please," Dean pleads. "You know this life isn't any way for a kid to grow up."

Bobby's shushing her and rocking her gently, but he glances up at Dean. "I'll think about it," he tells us. Going off the way she's already starting to quiet down, it's pretty clear he'd be a better parent than any of us, so I'm seriously hoping he'll agree.

"There's an old crib in the attic, if you want to get that set up somewhere," he says, looking sternly at the three of us.

When no one else volunteers to get the crib, I sigh and stand up. "I guess I'll take care of it."

I head upstairs and find the dusty crib all disassembled in a box in the corner of the attic. Maybe Bobby _did_ have kids after all. Or maybe it's just from taking care of other people's kids. I know he at least had some small part in raising Sam and Dean.

I carry down the box and stand in the hallway for a moment, wondering where to set it up. When we visit, the three of us usually sleep on the floor or the couch in the library, and I'm pretty sure there's a guest bedroom somewhere, but I haven't been here often enough to have seen most of the upstairs rooms.

I decide to ask Bobby. I drop the box at the top of the stairs and start to head down.

"Sam, you're being awfully immature about this," I hear Bobby say from the kitchen when I'm about halfway down the stairs. I tiptoe down the rest of the stairs silently in an effort to eavesdrop.

"She made it pretty obvious that she didn't want anything to do with me, before, and then when we were finally starting to patch things up she _left_," Sam says as I quietly tiptoe down the hall to stand just outside the kitchen. "I think it's pretty clear that she doesn't care about me that much."

Ouch. I feel a twinge of pain that he believes something so untrue.

"Maybe she just needed some time away from you," Bobby says, a hint of anger in his voice. "You of all people should know the scars that hell leaves."

"Yeah, but—"

"Have you even asked her about it?"

"No, but—"

"Then grow a goddamn pair and talk to her!"

There's a few moments of tense silence and I let out my breath that I didn't even realize I'd been holding.

I must've made too much noise, because Bobby says, "Eva?"

Dammit.

I take a deep breath and walking around the corner, trying to put an expression on my face that would show I didn't hear anything. "Uh, yeah. I got the crib, but I left it at the top of the stairs because I don't know where to set it up." I glance around. It's just Bobby and Sam in here. "Where's Dean?"

"Bringing stuff in from the car," Sam says flatly, not looking at me.

"I can take care of that crib," Bobby cuts in before I can reply. "I'll set it up in the spare bedroom."

He stands up, the baby still in his arms, and starts to head out the door to go upstairs. He pauses for a moment in the doorway to shoot Sam a meaningful look before he goes.

It's just me and Sam, both of us silent and avoiding looking at each other while we listen to Bobby's footsteps fade away as he goes down the hall.

When we can't hear them anymore, Sam asks, "How much did you hear?" He's still keeping his eyes fixed on the floor.

I swallow. "Enough." I bite my lip. "So? Are you gonna grow a pair and talk to me?" I ask him quietly.

He sighs and looks up at me. "Was any of it true? What I said?"

"No, Sam, of course not." I go and sit down across the table from him. I stare at the table fixedly, not ready to meet his eyes, but I can tell he's watching me. "I… I was scared of you, because of what happened in hell, and I was frustrated, because… I _did_ care about you, but I couldn't, not when I was on edge all the time, and… that was so exhausting, I had to get away, just for a little while…" I let out a huff of frustration in not being able to get my words out the way I want to. "I really missed you, Sam," I say, finally looking up to meet his eyes.

He's still just watching me, but his expression has softened. He believes me, at least.

After a few seconds, he gets up and walks around the table to sit in the chair next to me. He takes my hand in his. "I missed you too," he says softly, looking down at our hands, rubbing the back of my hand with his thumb. "I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry too," I whisper.

He looks up and meets my eyes and I give him a wavering smile.

Just then, the back door slams and Dean says, "Hey guys, I finished bringing in the—" His voice fades as he walks around the corner into the kitchen. "Uh, sorry," he says before backing out slowly.

Too late, the moment's ruined anyway. At least we had a chance to sort things out a little bit, if not completely.

Sam gives my hand a quick squeeze before letting it go and standing up. "I guess we should go help Bobby or something, huh?" he says.

I nod.

"I guess so."


	19. Chapter 19

I'm exhausted the next morning, and from the looks of him, so is Sam. I'd volunteered to sleep in the spare bedroom to take care of the baby during the night - as well as I could, anyway, since Bobby and Dean had filled me and Sam in on the basics of childcare only the night before - though Sam had knocked on the door after about the third time she woke me up and offered to take over the rest of the night. I'd gotten to spend the rest of the night downstairs on the couch, finally able to sleep without interruption.

In the morning, a half-conscious Sam hands the baby over to Bobby without saying a word. If he's as tired as I am, he must be glad to get her off his hands. Yeah, the two of us are great parent material.

At least Dean made breakfast. Eggs, bacon, coffee… the whole deal. I don't know how he does it. I've stuck to mostly microwave meals and cereal since I became a hunter. Who has time for real food anymore, anyway?

When we're all seated at the table eating breakfast and Bobby's started feeding the baby with a bottle of formula, he asks us, "Does she have a name yet?"

I stop chewing for a moment. I hadn't actually thought about it. I was really just thinking of her as 'the baby' in my head.

"Uh, no," I say, swallowing and setting my fork down. I look at Sam and Dean, who are still eating. "Any ideas?"

Dean shrugs. "Hey, it's your kid, not mine," he says, his mouth full.

"You're the mother, you're the one who should get to pick," Sam tells me.

"Yeah, but it's not like I gave birth to her. I don't have any special claim to choosing a name. But…" I tap the table, remembering something. Sam had told me once, a long time ago, what he would choose to name his kids if he ever had them. "How about we name her after your mom?" I finally say.

"Mary?" Sam says. He looks over at the baby and my eyes follow his. Bobby glances up at us, not saying anything.

"I could see it," I say after a moment.

"Yeah, I like it," Sam agrees.

Bobby nods, and then smiles down at Mary, who's intently sucking on the bottle. "Mary. It's a good name."

Dean finishes his food and sets his fork and knife down on the plate. "I like it too," he says. He points at the bacon on my plate. "Are you gonna eat that?"

"Uh, yeah," I say, moving my plate a little further away from Dean. He sighs in disappointment and then looks back towards the pan next to the stove like he's considering making more food.

"So, that book that Cas mentioned," Bobby interrupts. "What was it called again?"

"_Reserans caveum_," Dean says, recovering quickly from the bacon denial. "Opening the cage," he adds in translation.

"I know what it means. I've understood Latin since before you were born, boy," Bobby scoffs.

"The translation was for Eva," Dean clarifies with a cocky grin aimed at me.

"Pedicabo ego vos," I grumble, and Dean laughs. I know at least enough Latin to throw some offensive language his way.

"There's a kid here," Bobby says disapprovingly. "So, what are you going to do next?"

I clear my throat. "Maybe just lay low for now and try to find out where Bela is and what she's up to," I say. I'm not sure how, but it's the best I have for now.

"Cas is still out there somewhere," Dean adds. "He might be able to help us."

"We have no way to contact him," Sam interjects. "Since he came back, he hasn't gotten a new phone, as far as we know."

Dean purses his lips. He clasps his hands together in front of him and closes his eyes. "Cas, we need your help. With saving the world, again. I don't know if we can do it without you, so please come help us out." He opens an eye to see if Cas has shown up, but he's not here. He opens the other eye and drops his hands back to the table. "Guess he's not listening," he says. It was a good idea to try, at least. Cas used to listen to Dean's prayers.

"Maybe he'll just contact us when he's ready," I offer.

"That could take forever," Dean complains.

"Yeah," I say with a sigh. "We'll have to figure something out in the meantime."

"We could try to find something online," Sam suggests.

"Let's do that," I say, pushing my seat back and standing up. Talking about it is making me sort of antsy, and I feel like I need to do something. Sam puts his silverware on his plate and stands up as well.

"I'll just… finish my food then," Dean says as we leave. "Alone."

"What am I, chopped liver?" Bobby asks in offense as we enter the library.

Sam and I get our laptops and sit on the couch, him on one end and me on the other. I'm a little bit distracted, wondering whether it's more awkward to move closer to him, or to stay conspicuously far apart. There's still a small part of me left over from hell saying that I'm not far enough away, but a bigger part of me that just wants him to put his arm around my shoulder and, you know, kiss me or something.

Finally, that part wins, and I scoot next to him. He glances over at me but doesn't react much besides that. I rest my head on his shoulder and I can see him smile out of the corner of my eye.

We start looking through articles, the usual browsing that we do when we're trying to find some type of lead. I can hear Bobby and Dean talking in low voices in the kitchen still, but I tune them out.

After about half an hour of fruitless searching, Dean walks into the room.

"Guys," he says, and Sam and I both look up from our computers.

"I went to the car to check my other phones and I got a text on this one," he says, holding up a phone that must've been cutting-edge fifteen years ago.

"From who?" Sam asks, starting to get up from his chair.

"From Cas, I think, but I don't recognize the number. All the text has in it is a pair of coordinates and his name."

Sam walks over and takes the phone. "Weird. Did you even give him the number to this phone?"

"Not that I can remember, but angels work in mysterious ways," Dean replies.

"Maybe it's a trap," I say skeptically.

"But who else knows Cas is back?" Dean asks.

"They might've figured it out after he killed Asbeel," I point out. "Or maybe they noticed him snooping. Or maybe it's just a wild guess."

"We should check it out either way," Sam says, passing the phone back to Dean. "There's gotta be something there, and we need to find out what it is."


End file.
